Power Rangers: No Threat
by VFrame
Summary: What happens to the Rangers when they defeat J and his Shadow army? Why, they move off to college, of course! Details Rangers' lives in between Energy Combat and Rescue Ops. I will be writing another story simultaneously with this one called Power Rangers: New Generation. Check that one out to and let me know what you think! REVIEWS ARE APPRECIATED :D
1. Moving In

_Wow, I can't believe I'm writing my third story already. It's been a total of 130 chapters and here I am, ready to write an entirely new set. I've come a long way as an author, and I hope that you will be able to enjoy this story as much as my other ones._

_Without further ado, I present to you Power Rangers: No Threat!_

_For those of you that don't know (or didn't read the summary), this story takes place between Energy Combat and Rescue Ops, primarily focusing on the college life and elementary school life of the Rangers corresponding to their ages._

_Yes, this will be a Power Rangers story, which means that there is action and morphing and all that good stuff. You'll just have to see how it pans out._

_Also, to the reviewer who asked for a story with all of the kids in the future, **that story is being written.**I decided to keep both of these stories simultaneous, so look out for it when I put out its first chapter (probably sometime in the next two days). It'll be titled **Power Rangers: New Generation.**_

_Anyways, on with the story!_

* * *

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

After a long car ride, Raylan and his parents finally reached his residence hall at Stanford University. After a successful high school career and good standings on his school lacrosse team, he was able to sign to Stanford's lacrosse team as both a member of the school and their athletic department.

"Raylan, we're here." Raylan's mom woke him up from his nap.

"Wow, finally." Raylan groaned and squinted to regain vision. "This is real."

"I know, I'm so proud of you." his mom squeezed his cheeks.

"Ow, mom, come on!" Raylan complained. "I'm eighteen, not three!"

"But I _am _proud of you."

"Yes, I know." Raylan said sternly before stepping out of the car. "Man, I can't believe I'm actually here."

"Neither can we." Raylan's father put his arm around his son's shoulder. "You've made it so far."

"I know, it's crazy." Raylan admitted. "This is way too surreal."

"Do you need us to help you with your bags?"

"No, I think I can handle it on my own." Raylan said.

"But you also have your lacrosse equipment to take out." Raylan's father reminded him.

"Tyler said he'd be down in a minute." Raylan told his parents. "And there he is right now!"

"Hey, Raylan. Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Westbrook." Tyler greeted Raylan's family and shook his father's hand. "How are you all doing?"

"We're doing fine, Tyler. Thanks for helping out." Raylan's father smiled.

"It's no problem." Tyler nodded.

"Watch over him carefully. Make sure he behaves." Raylan's mother instructed Tyler.

"Don't worry, he's my roommate. I'll keep a good eye on him." Tyler assured Raylan's parents.

"I guess...we have to go now..." Raylan's mother mumbled. "We're going to miss you so much."

"Mom..."

"Sorry, it's just that you're my son. After you, we only have your little sister left. You're going away so fast." she kissed her son's forehead.

"I'm gonna miss you, bud." Raylan's father hugged his son. "Behave."

"Don't worry, I will." Raylan told his parents. "I know my limits."

"We hope so." Raylan's parents said in unison as they stepped in the car and finally drove away.

"So, have you finished setting up our room?" Raylan asked his new roommate.

"Yeah, I pretty much got everything all set up." Tyler smiled. "We're ready for college, bro!"

"Dude, there's so much to do here!" Raylan exclaimed. "I'm so excited! Has Emma arrived, yet?"

"I don't know, she's _your _girlfriend." Tyler answered.

"I'm right here." Emma nudged Raylan from behind. "I got here yesterday."

"Sweet!" Raylan hugged her. "So we already got a group of three here!"

"What do you guys wanna do now, then?" Tyler asked. "I mean, we don't really have any plans."

"Yeah, I always thought college life just came at you." Raylan shrugged. "Should we just go out for dinner, then?"

"It's late evening." Emma stated. "I'm getting really hungry."

"There's a really good Thai restaurant on campus." Tyler informed the two. "Should we go there?"

"I...I guess so." Raylan nodded.

* * *

"That was really good." Raylan complimented the restaurant as he and his two friends left.

Since they didn't really have much of an idea of what to do, they just went out to an early dinner. Raylan expected things to just head their way without actually realizing that they would have to go out of their way to find out what's happening. It would take a while to get used to, but the independent life was finally striking him.

"Man, if this is what college is like then I wanna go home ASAP." Tyler complained.

"Dude, we just got here." Raylan sighed. "Give it a while to sink in and I'm sure you'll have fun."

"You're right, I can't wait till classes start." Tyler agreed. "I wanna talk to the professors and see some of the different projects that they have to offer."

"See? That's more like it!"

"Do you guys wanna hang out the entire night?" Emma asked. "We have nothing better to do and classes only start next week."

"I'm fine with that." Raylan nodded. "It at least gives us a reason to stay up late."

* * *

**==Los Angeles, California, United States==**

Johnny, Shane, and Ryleigh drove off to the UCLA campus together. Since both Shane and Ryleigh were about to head off to college there together, it was only appropriate that Ryleigh's boyfriend drove them down.

"There it is!" Shane exclaimed from the shotgun seat. "Man, I can't wait!"

"I'm so nervous..." Ryleigh mumbled from the backseat of Johnny's car.

"Where can I park?" Johnny asked, looking at the full parking lot. "There are literally no spaces!"

"Just park on the road." Shane assured Johnny.

"Are you sure about that?" Johnny asked.

"Trust me, bro, I gotcha covered."

"Whatever you say, dude." Johnny chuckled as he parked the car on an empty aisle in the road.

"Wow, Los Angeles smells great!" Ryleigh said, stepping out of the car.

"I can already smell the parties...and the girls..." Shane stated in a dreamy voice.

"You're here to study, not to get kicked out." Ryleigh reminded him.

"Hey, I'm also here to play lacrosse. I think I can kick back and relax hard on weekends." Shane said back. "And besides, it's college! We're supposed to let loose!"

"You know the rules, right?" Johnny asked Ryleigh.

"Don't worry Johnny, I won't do anything with any other guy." Ryleigh assured her boyfriend. "I already have the best guy ever, why would I stoop down?"

"That's my girl." Johnny smiled, pulling Ryleigh in for a tight hug. "Now go have fun."

"You're...you're leaving?" Ryleigh asked.

"Of course not! Someone's got to help you with your bags." Johnny laughed. "I'm not gonna leave you just yet."

"Then you can carry this...and this...oh, and that...and this...and even this..." Ryleigh piled things on her boyfriend.

"You're not even carrying anything!" Johnny exclaimed.

"Dude, you're the boyfriend." Shane patted Johnny's back. "And while you're at it, you can also carry all of these." he dumped his stuff on Johnny, as well.

"Man, I don't even go to college and I'm hating it." Johnny mumbled to himself.

* * *

"Can I finally take a rest?" Johnny fell onto Ryleigh's bed. "I'm way too tired."

"Yes, you can finally rest up." Ryleigh kissed her boyfriend's forehead. "Thank you for helping us, it was really sweet of you."

"Come on, don't third-wheel me!" Shane complained. "I'm still here..."

"No one's asking you to be here." Johnny stated. "You have your own room..."

"Yeah, and I'm probably going to go there before you guys start getting intimate or something. I'll see you guys later." Shane left Ryleigh's room.

"So, this is it?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah, I guess this is where one part of my life ends and another begins." Ryleigh sighed. "I'm going to miss you."

"I'm going to miss you, too." Johnny pulled Ryleigh in for a passionate kiss.

"Do you have to go back?"

"I hate to say it, but I really do." Johnny sighed. "Since I'm not in college, I have to find some sort of job to give me a backing."

"I wish I could help."

"It's alright, Ryleigh." Johnny assured his girlfriend. "I'll be fine."

"I love you so much."

"I love you too, Ryleigh."

* * *

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

Raylan, Tyler, and Emma decided to go hang out and watch a movie in Emma's room. Since her roommate was only moving in on the next day, they didn't have anyone's space to invade in. After a really boring day, they decided to finish it off by watching some old superhero movies.

"Which one do you wanna watch next?" Tyler asked after_ Superman _ended.

"It doesn't matter to-" Raylan was cut off by his vibrating phone. "Hello?" he answered.

"_Hi, sweetie!_" Raylan's mom said on the other end of the line. "_How are you?_"

"I'm fine, mom..." Raylan groaned

"_Why the upset voice?_" Raylan's mom asked. "_Is everything alright?_"

"Yes, everything's alright. I'm kinda busy right now."

"_Oh, big ol' Raylan is too 'independent' to talk to his own mom?_"

"No, it's not that at all..."

"Hi, Mrs. Westbrook!" Emma shouted out.

"_Who's that?_" Raylan's mom asked.

"That's Emma."

"_Oh, how is she doing?_"

"She's doing fine, mom..."

"_Well, that's just splendid! I hope you guys are having fun!_"

"We were..." Raylan groaned.

"_Fine, I'll let you do your thing. Remember to call me tomorrow. Bye!_"

"Bye, mom." Raylan hung the phone up. "Well, that was annoying."

"Oh, come on, she's your mother!" Emma exclaimed. "And besides, what else were you planning on doing tonight?"

"Nothing..."

"Yeah, so why can't you make time for your mom?"

"Fine, I'll give her a call." Raylan groaned.

* * *

_And that's the first chapter! Sorry if it moved kinda slow, starting a story is one of the hardest things to do. Things'll pick up, though!_


	2. Kidnapping

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

Raylan and Tyler woke up to the irritating sound of Gadget-X cleaning out his filters. One of the things that the Rangers had to do was find a home for Gadget-X. Tyler always hid the robot somewhere in his house and his parents always thought it was just something he made. One of the good things about college was that they could finally put Gadget-X somewhere safe; in their dorm room. If a student ever questioned it, all they would have to say was that it was an engineering project.

"Man, could you quiet down?" Raylan asked. "It's six in the morning."

"Really, I'm dead tired." Tyler agreed.

"Sorry, but my carburetors won't clean themselves!" Gadget-X defended himself. "Just live with it for this morning and I'll reschedule my daily routine."

"In what world did you think scheduling it for six in the morning was a good idea?" Raylan asked rhetorically.

"I wasn't expecting to be kept in the company of humans!" Gadget-X replied. "If I had known that then I would have rewired myself a long time ago!"

"Well, you better get started on it because this isn't about to be a daily routine." Tyler said.

"Or what?"

"Or I'll send you to...the landfill!" Tyler exclaimed.

One of the greatest fear of robots was being sent to a trash heap. As a collection of metal parts, Gadget-X always felt like he was disposable and replaceable. By threatening him, Tyler was able to bend his will.

"Fine, I'll start rewiring myself." Gadget-X gave in.

"Good, now _please _let us sleep." Raylan rolled back over and pulled his blanket over his head.

"Really, little dude, I'm also trying to get some sleep." Tyler rolled over as well.

"Yeesh, everybody's a critic." Gadget-X also went dormant.

* * *

"Why are your eyes bloodshot?" Emma asked both Raylan and Tyler went they went to visit her room. Since her roommate still hadn't moved in, they had some time to hang out at her place.

"Because Gadget-X woke us up early with his stupid 'system cleaning' procedure." Raylan groaned. "I wasn't able to go back to sleep afterwards."

"Yeah, neither was I." Tyler agreed. "The sound of his metal pieces clanking everywhere was ringing in my head."

"It's _still _ringing in my head." Raylan pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What are you guys going to do about it?" Emma asked. "It's not like you can get rid of him."

"We don't plan on getting rid of him." Tyler reassured her. "He said that he'd start to change his routine and such."

"And what if the problem persists?"

"Emma, we're at Stanford, one of the biggest nerd schools in the country." Tyler reminded her. "We can pass him off as an engineering project and all the professors will go crazy over the 'talking robot'. Raylan is a Chemical Engineering major and I'm a Computer Science major, which means that our excuse can work to a certain level."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"That reminds me...don't classes start tomorrow?" Raylan asked the two of them.

"Yeah, I start off my day with Intro to Computer Science!" Tyler pumped his fist. "I'm so excited!"

"Meh, I have Biology 101 first." Emma groaned.

"I thought you came here to do Biology?" Tyler asked. "Shouldn't you be excited?"

"No, I am, it's just I was hoping to start off with an easier class."

"At least you're not starting off with Intro to Engineering like I am." Raylan told them. "The entire class is Calculus with words."

* * *

**==Los Angeles, California, United States==**

Ryleigh picked up her phone and went through her contacts to find Johnny. Since this was her first day at college without him, she wanted to let him know how she was feeling.

"_Hello?_" Johnny answered.

"Hey, it's me." Ryleigh said.

"_Oh, hey cutie-pie!_" Johnny said. "_How are things going with you? I miss you by the way__._"

"I miss you, too." Ryleigh stated. "But things are going pretty well for me. It kinda sucks that we're not really that close anymore, but I guess it'll help in the long run."

"_LA is only a one-hour drive from Smalltown. I can come visit you whenever I'd like!_" Johnny reassured her.

"But it's just not the same without you..."

"_I know, it kinda sucks without you here._"

"By the way, how's your job search going?" Ryleigh asked.

"_It's going alright. I haven't applied anywhere yet, but I'm hoping for the best!_" Johnny exclaimed.

"Well, that's great to hear!" Ryleigh smiled. "I _know _you'll make it somewhere!"

"_I hope so..._" Johnny sighed. "_Oh, well, my mom is starting to yell at me. I'll talk to you later, baby. I love you so much._"

"I love you too, Johnny. Bye-bye."

"_Bye!_" he said before he hung up the phone.

Ryleigh wrapped her arms around her legs and sat in the corner of her bed. It was going to be hard without her other half, but she had to bear through if she wanted to go somewhere in life.

* * *

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

After another long and boring day, nighttime fell on the college campus. While most kids went to sleep early in order to wake up on time for classes, Raylan, Tyler, and Emma were persistent on trying to have fun.

Emma's roommate finally moved in, which meant that if they wanted to talk in private, they would have to do it in Raylan's and Tyler's room. While her roommate, May, was a sweet girl, they also needed their space.

Suddenly, all three of their phones started to vibrate. Confused, they pulled them out and read the text message. It was a notification from the University saying that there was a kidnapping on campus and that all students should remain indoors until the campus is deemed safe again.

"Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?" Raylan asked.

"That we should listen to them and stay indoors?" Emma guessed.

"No, I'm thinking that we go out and be superheroes!" Raylan exclaimed.

"What do you mean?" Tyler asked.

"Haven't you guys read any Spiderman comics?" Raylan asked. "He puts his mask on day-in and day-out in order to put order back into his town."

"So you're saying that we all get bitten by spiders..." Tyler stated sarcastically.

"No, I'm saying we put our masks on and be vigilantes."

"And how would be do that?" Emma asked.

"We all have our Morphers on us, right?" Raylan double checked with his team. They all nodded slowly. "How about we morph and go out there and save this kidnapping victim?"

"You know, that actually sounds like fun." Tyler smiled.

"But how are we going to find them?" Emma asked. "We can't just run out at night and expect results."

"Well, that's what we did when we fought the Shadows." Raylan reminded his girlfriend. "Who's to say we can't do it again?"

"I'm with Raylan on this one." Tyler nodded. "Let's go out and do this!"

"Grr...fine..." Emma groaned. "But if we fuck up, it's all your fault."

"Fine by me!" Raylan exclaimed. "Let's move out!"


	3. An Initiation

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

The trio consisting of Raylan, Emma, and Tyler ran outside in the night in order to 'assist' the kidnapping victim. It wasn't everyday that there was a crime reported on Stanford's campus, but this was one of those instances and the Rangers had to go to action. It had been a while since they morphed for a reason other than for the sake of it, but they knew that somebody needed their help.

They quickly bolted out of their dorm hall and got behind an alleyway. There, they stood in a circle and intently looked at each other to decide who would make the first move.

"You can morph first." Emma nudged her boyfriend.

"Me? Why not Tyler?" Raylan nudged Tyler.

"Hey, Emma's the one who nudged you first. Why doesn't she morph?" Tyler nudged Emma.

"You know what? I'll morph." Raylan decided and held his morpher up. "It's morphin' time! Dragon" he shouted as his Ranger suit materialized around him. "There, was that so hard?"

"I'm up next." Tyler nodded. "It's morphin' time! Lion!"

"It's morphin' time! Elephant!"

Finally, the three Rangers had morphed and were ready to carry out their task. However, there was one large problem in sight: they didn't know where to start looking.

"Okay, so where do we go from here?" Raylan asked. "We have no idea where this person could be."

"The text alert stated that it was on campus and that they urged everyone to stay off." Tyler stated.

"Which means that most people would be indoors." Emma realized.

"And if most people are indoors, that means we can hear this kidnapping thing a lot better." Raylan concluded. "So all we have to do is pay attention to the noise that's not created by us and we'll be good to go."

"Exactly." Tyler gave him a thumbs up. "Let's start listening."

"Didn't Gadget-X program an amplifier into our helmets or something?" Emma asked. "I'm sure that would be beneficial."

"Emma's right." Raylan reiterated. "Guys, concentrate hard and listen in."

By using their amplifier, they were able to notice some disturbances in the audible noise barrier. They kept pushing their concentration until they heard a faint cry for help.

"That way!" Raylan pointed and urged for the other Rangers to follow him.

"I hope you know where you're going." Emma sighed and followed her boyfriend alongside Tyler.

Emma and Tyler kept following Raylan's sense of hearing until they reached a dead end. They looked around them and tried to listen in, but there was only a haunting silence.

"Are you sure you led us in the right direction?" Emma asked. "I don't see or hear anything nearby."

"Yeah, we're at a dead end." Tyler agreed. "There doesn't seem to be anything here except a wall."

"That's what they want you to believe." Raylan held his hand up. He walked over to a section of the wall and punched a hole in.

"HELP!" a girl's voice called out from inside the wall.

Shocked at the discovery, Emma and Tyler followed Raylan and rushed into the hole with him. Now knowing what to expect despite having the upper hand, the Rangers kept close.

"Freeze!" a male college student held up a pistol to Raylan's head.

"Okay, I'm wearing a helmet and you think your pistol will get through to me?" Raylan asked sarcastically. "Now let her go!"

"P-Power Rangers?" the male student asked. "What are you doing here? We thought you disappeared!"

"Help..." a female college student whimpered from the ground. She was dusty and her clothes were tattered.

"Shut up!" the male student kicked her in her stomach, silencing her.

"Alright, that's it." Emma mumbled and lunged straight for him. She grabbed him by his hips and threw him straight at the ground. When she was on top of him, she threw a barrage of punches at his face.

"Yellow, calm down!" Raylan held his girlfriend back. "We're not trying to kill him."

"What's your business here?" Tyler asked the student. "Who is she and why did you kidnap her?"

"You fools will never know." the male student laughed.

"If we can't get an answer from you, then we'll get them from someone else." Tyler decided. "Dragon, call the cops up."

"I'm on it, Blue." Raylan nodded, dialing the cops through his helmet phone.

Within minutes, the authorities were on the scene and arrested the student. They thanked the Rangers and quickly left the scene with the student in handcuffs. Like Tyler said, if they couldn't get answers from him, they would from someone else. That someone would be the girl.

* * *

When everything settled down and the girl was able to stop crying, the Rangers were finally able to talk to her. There were so many questions to be asked, but they had to do it carefully to prevent her from possibly crying again.

"Are you calmed down?" Raylan finally asked. "I know this sounds pressuring, but we need some information out of you."

"I understand..." the girl nodded and sniffled.

"First off, what's your name?" Raylan asked.

"C-Courtney. Courtney Wright." she answered softly.

"Why did he kidnap you?" Emma asked.

"He said it was a part of 'initiation' or something." Courtney answered.

"What kind of initiation was it?" Tyler asked.

"I-I have no idea. He just said that he was going to keep me tied up until he was done raping me." Courtney winced. "It hurts to think about."

"Is that all he told you?" Raylan asked.

"Y-Yes."

"Are you a student here?"

"Yes."

"So you didn't know him?"

"N-No sir."

"You don't need to call me sir, I'm only about your age." Raylan chuckled. "Just rest up a bit. Do you need us to take you to your place of residence?"

"Th-that would be nice." Courtney nodded.

"Is there anything else that you need help with?" Emma asked. "Like, do you need something to eat or anything?"

"No, I'll be fine." Courtney sniffled.

* * *

The three Rangers dropped Courtney off at her apartment by campus and then went back to Raylan's and Tyler's room to talk about it.

"That whole situation was weird." Emma sighed. "I didn't understand what was happening."

"And what was the whole thing about that initiation?" Tyler asked. "It didn't make much sense to me."

"Well, there's only one thing I can tell you." Raylan stated. "And that's that we're going to see more of this..._a lot _more."


	4. Classes Start

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

Monday morning came around and it was time for everyone at the university to start their classes. Raylan's and Tyler's alarm clock went off at 8AM for them to get ready in the morning. The two slowly propped themselves up and got off of their bed.

"Man, I'm still tired as hell." Raylan scratched his eyes before yawning.

"Tell me about it." Tyler groaned. "This is too early for me."

Both Rangers jumped when there was a loud knock on the door. Raylan scratched his hair and walked over to his door. He sighed and opened it to find Emma completely dressed to start the day.

"Wow, someone's early." Raylan chuckled.

"And two people are really lazy." Emma commented, looking at Tyler and Raylan. "You guys should get ready if you want to get a head start."

"Who needs a head start?" Raylan asked. "I just need a nap..."

"Come on, get your clothes and get into the shower." Emma dragged Raylan and Tyler by their arms.

It took a good ten minutes of pulling and pushing, but Raylan and Tyler finally finished their showers and got ready for the day. Tyler popped on his usual sweater vest with black pants and a pair of dress shoes while Raylan went casual with a red Polo, khakis, and a pair of brown Sperry's.

"Wow, you guys are looking sharp!" Emma complimented the boys. "But you don't want to be late for your 9AMs, so let's get off to class!"

"Can we skip?" Raylan pleaded. "I'm still dead tired."

"Yeah, that whole 'operation save Courtney' thing last night got me super tired." Tyler admitted. "It was too late at night for me."

"I agree." Emma nodded. "But we have to stay super happy for our first day of classes!" she smiled.

"Man, you're way too cheery." Raylan chuckled. "How are we together again?"

* * *

Finally, after a rough day of starting right off the bat, the three in the trio were finally done with their classes. All three went to Raylan's and Tyler's room and instantly fell down.

"I am sooooo dead." Emma groaned as she lay on Raylan's bed. "Wake me up when life matters."

"I could sleep for an entire month straight." Tyler agreed and fell onto his own bed.

"Are you really leaving me on the floor?" Raylan asked before falling onto the carpet. "You know what? I don't care, I'm tired."

Just when they started to doze off, a loud alarm woke them all form their naps. In a state of shock, Emma quickly fumbled to pick up her phone. She saw that it was a call from Ryleigh.

"H-hello?" Emma answered, evidently tired.

"_Hey__._" Ryleigh replied on the other end. "_Is this a bad time? You sound awful..._"

"No, no, it's fine." Emma assured her friend. "Just a bit tired after classes."

"_Okay, you have to check the news._" Ryleigh informed her. "_Anyways, I have to go. Johnny wants his after-classes call and I don't want him to worry. I'll talk to you later. Bye!_" she hung up.

"What's going on?" Emma asked as she put her cell phone down.

"What happened?" Raylan asked. "That kinda woke us up."

"Turn on the news." Emma told her boyfriend."

"Okay..." Raylan groaned, picked up the remote, and set the TV to the news channel.

"_This is Beatrice Crowley reporting from the scene of the crime._" the reporter said.

"Hey, doesn't that look..." Raylan squinted his eyes.

"_Just last night the Rangers thwarted a crime that could have turned much worse. They hadn't been seen since the attacks on Smalltown just a year and a half before. If it weren't for them, the suspect wouldn't be in custody. While we are unaware of any circumstances, we are aware that the suspect was participating in an initiation of some sort. He wouldn't reveal to the authorities what it was, but they are hopeful that they will uncover all of the information._"

"Hey...they're talking about us!" Tyler exclaimed. "Sweet!"

"_This just in: the suspect in custody was reported to have killed himself. James Thomas was a junior at Stanford University and was revealed by the police to have kidnapped his sophomore classmate Courtney Wright. It is reported that he took a cyanide shot when his handcuffs were finally removed._"

"Whoa!" Raylan exclaimed.

"That's not good...at all!" Emma added in.

"That must mean that if there's a failed initiation..." Tyler started

"...then the member would have to kill themselves." Raylan concluded.

"Which also means that this isn't any ordinary mission." Emma nodded.

"You're right, we're dealing with a human life here. We have to treat these things with _extreme _caution." Tyler stated.

"And if this is a club initiation, we're going to see a lot of this going on." Raylan said. "So we have to be very careful."

"But what are _we _going to do about it?" Emma asked. "If this is actually going on, what can we do?"

"We need to have tight regulations on the initiate." Raylan instructed. "They're unpredictable and they're our only link to answers."

"Does this mean everybody loses?" Tyler asked.

"What do you mean?"

"If we watch the girl, then we lose out on the guy. If we watch the guy, then we lose out on the girl. Either way, we lose." Tyler explained.

"You're...you're right." Emma realized. "And proven by what happened when an entire team of authorities lost an eye on the suspect, we're going to need more than three."

"Yeah, that's true." Raylan sighed. "We're going to need the rest of us. I don't think Johnny, Sydney, and Mike are in college, so we can bring them in. As for Shane and Ryleigh, they're going to need to help out only when they can."

"Are you sure about this?" Emma asked. "I thought we were past Ranger activities."

"Does it look like we have a choice?"


	5. Tag

_Like I had said earlier, this story wouldn't just be about the older Rangers. I would also include some young moments of the Rescue Ops Rangers in this story. This story is one of them._

_Also, to clear up some air, this isn't a flashback and takes place around the same time as everything in California is taking place. This is simply a viewing of what's going on in the younger Rangers' lives and how they grew up._

_Also, with Winter Break coming to a close, my updates may once again become slow depending on my schedule. My schedule this semester, however, has a lot more free time than I did last semester, meaning I will have more time to write and outline my chapters. Sorry and I hope you understand!_

_Anyways, on with the story!_

* * *

**==Palisade, North Carolina, United States==**

School had finally started in Palisade and the elementary school got ready for its day to start. Kids got to school in their school buses and were ready to start learning.

Midway through the day, the school bell rang and allowed the students to leave for recess outdoors. All of the students grouped up with their friends and ran outside to play together. Different kids assembled in different areas: some kids went to the soccer field, some kids went to the basketball court, some kids went under the shade to play with toys, and some kids were on the playground.

Eight-year-old Chase Vereen ran around the school playground playing tag with a few friends from his class. It was a small group of four children, so they had their little individual fun in their half-hour window of recess playtime. While they weren't paying attention, a pretty brunette girl in a white flowery dress was watching their game intently.

"Chase, you're it!" a boy ran over to Chase and tackled him.

"Aw, man!" Chase exclaimed.

"No tag backs!" the boy ran away.

Chase climbed up the ladder up to the top of the playground to inspect where all the little kids were running. Even from such a young age, Chase was a very strategic kid. He would plan out his actions before actually carrying them out.

He spotted a boy trying to run up the slide. By predicting his actions and plotting his time and distance, Chase bolted towards the slide and slid down. On the way down, he ran his hand through the boy and tagged him. Then, Chase quickly darted away before the boy could even realize it.

"No tag backs!" Chase stuck his tongue out and ran away.

The game was going fine and uninterrupted for about a few minutes. The kids were tagging each other back and forth and were just having a good time. Then, the girl in the flowery dress walked over to them. Chase and the rest of the boys ran down from the playground to go see who she was and what she wanted from them.

"Who are you?" Chase asked.

"And why are you here?" another boy asked. "You're a girl, and girls are icky!"

"I'm not icky." the girl defended herself. "I just want to play tag."

"No." one boy shook his head. "You probably have the cooties."

"Ew!" all of the other boys, including Chase, shouted. "Cooties!"

"I do not have the cooties!" the girl crossed her arms. "I just wanna play tag! The other girls are boring. I just wanna run around and have fun with you guys."

"Just let her play." Chase told the boys. "If she's not good or anything then we can tell her to leave."

"Okay, but if you give us the cooties then we're telling on you." one of the boys warned her.

"Go ahead, I won't give you the cooties." she said. Chase placed his hand on her shoulder. "What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Tag! You're it!" Chase and the rest of the boys started to run away.

"I'm gonna get you!" she laughed.

All of the kids started to run around and play tag for a good while. What started off as a rough standstill for the girl turned into a fun game of tag. She was able to tag the boys pretty easily and even proved herself more athletic than them. She quickly had them on their tails as they all started to tire down around her.

"Boy, you're making us tired." Chase huffed. "How are you faster than us?"

"And we're not sick yet!" another boy exclaimed.

"I told you I didn't have the cooties and that I'm capable of playing with you guys." the girl crossed her arms. "Now are you guys going to keep running or are you letting me tag you while you're standing?"

The boys, who were all scared of being 'it', started to scramble away from her. It didn't take long for her to catch up with them and she managed to get Chase first. Chase groaned and started to run around and play 'it'.

Before the kids realized it, the half hour had passed and it was time for recess to end. All of them groaned and started to walk off the playground in order to continue the rest of their school day. Realizing that the girl was leaving them without telling them anything about herself, Chase jogged to keep up with her.

"Hey, I had fun." Chase smiled as they both walked towards the school. "Did you have fun?"

"I did too." the girl replied and slowed herself down when she realized that Chase was panting. "Thanks for letting me play with you guys. I just wanted to have some fun and the girls playing with the Barbie dolls weren't really doing anything"

"It's no problem. What's your name, by the way?" Chase asked.

"I'm McKenzie Taylor, but everyone calls me Kenzie."

"I'm Chase Vereen." Chase introduced himself. "Nice to meet you."


	6. A Second Kidnapping

**==Los Angeles, California, United States==**

Ryleigh walked into her Intro to Education lecture and waited for the teacher to begin the lesson. As a typical college student, she sat wherever a seat was available and not near people she might know. This time, she sat next to a pretty Asian-American girl about the same age as her.

"Hi!" the girl said as she watched Ryleigh sit down next to her.

"Hey, what's going on?" Ryleigh replied and took a seat next to her.

"Nothing much, what about you?" the girl asked.

"Just kinda tired." Ryleigh replied. "College is definitely a lot more different than high school."

"I'm just not liking how classes start right off the tee." the girl complained. "I'm Katelyn Chen, by the way. What's your name?"

"Ryleigh Smith." Ryleigh smiled. "It's nice to meet you."

"So do you want to be a teacher after college?" Katelyn asked.

"That's pretty much what I'm planning on. I'm guessing you do too?"

"Yup, I'd like to teach at an elementary school." Katelyn answered. "I love younger children."

"I'm more of the high school type." Ryleigh said. "But I could also see myself working with little kids."

"Are you from California?" Katelyn asked.

"Yeah, I'm from Smalltown." Ryleigh answered.

"Oh, isn't that where the Power Ranger thing happened? What did that feel like?"

"It was really chaotic, to be honest." Ryleigh chuckled. "Everything was a guessing game. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, you were toast."

"That sounds like it sucks."

"To be honest, it was actually kind of cool. In a weird, apocalyptical sort of way."

"Oh wow, I'm from LA, so we pretty much stayed away from Smalltown." Katelyn admitted. "There was no way any of us would walk into that deathtrap."

"It really wasn't that bad until the last day. Most of the casualties were on the final attack."

"I'd imagine it was all out."

"Yeah, he sent out everything he had at our city. It was pretty scary, but the Power Rangers got the job done."

"Which one was your favorite?" Katelyn asked. "I always liked the Pink Ranger."

"I was more of a Green Ranger fan." Ryleigh smirked. She noticed the professor walk into the lecture hall. "I think our professor is here."

"Well, time for notes." Katelyn groaned.

* * *

Ryleigh came back to her dorm room by the end of classes and crashed on her bed. Since she was in an honors education program, she didn't have a roommate to worry about. There would be nothing to keep her from having a good nap.

Well, nothing until her phone started to buzz. She groaned and propped herself up. She looked to her nightstand where she kept her phone and saw that it was a text message from Shane. She shook her head and went to read it.

"_u need to check the news ASAP_" Shane's message read.

"_what is it?_" Ryleigh asked.

"_just watch_"

Ryleigh sighed and turned her TV on to see an urgent report from Los Angeles.

"_This just in, we have received word of a kidnapping on the campus of the University of California at Los Angeles._" the reporter started. Ryleigh narrowed her eyes and paid close attention to the news cast. "_Katelyn Chen, eighteen, was last seen aggressively grabbed by a white male with blonde hair. Before bystanders could do anything about it, he evaded them. The search continues for the university freshman. Just a week ago, there was another university kidnapping on the campus of Stanford University. There is no current explanation of how and why this rare event is starting to show up around campuses everywhere. As of now, that is the only information we possess to report on._"

Ryleigh felt her heart rate begin to escalate. Katelyn was the girl she had sat next to in her Intro to Education class. She remembered her saying that the Pink Ranger was her favorite, and now she would have to be the one to rescue her. Ryleigh pulled out her phone and texted Shane.

"_ur coming with me_" she texted him.

"_for wat_"

"_we're going 2 save her_"

"_k. where should i meet u?_" he asked.

"_just meet me outside my dorm hall and we'll take it from there_"

* * *

Shane ran as fast as he could to Ryleigh's dorm building and found her waiting outside on a bench. He walked over to her and she stood up to face him.

"Where do we even look for this Katelyn girl?" Shane asked.

"I don't know, but Emma told me that she and the others used some sound sensor to track the kidnapping victim." Ryleigh informed him. "I say we use the same thing to find Katelyn."

"Okay, but you're going to be the one to lead." Shane told her.

"No problem, Pink is her favorite Ranger anyways."

"How do you know this?" Shane asked.

"Because I sit next to her in Intro to Education." Ryleigh said. "Just follow me."

Ryleigh led Shane to an alley where they both morphed into their suits without being spotted. Ryleigh put her hand to her helmet and started to concentrate on the sound waves. Since students were out and about, it would be hard to pinpoint Katelyn's voice. Luckily, she had talked to her earlier, meaning that she knew what she sounded like. After a powerful attempt to concentrate, Ryleigh started to hear Katelyn whimper.

"This way!" Ryleigh led Shane through the alley.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Shane asked.

"Just shut up and follow."

The two took a few twists and turns through the system of back alleys and found themselves behind a tall building. Ryleigh looked around to see if there was an entrance through the back.

"How do we even get in?" Ryleigh asked.

"If you saw the news report on the Stanford kidnapping, they broke in through the wall."

"So you're saying that we should damage this perfectly nice building?"

"I mean, we're about to save a life. It's worth it." Shane shrugged.

"Then you have the honors." Ryleigh backed off and pushed Shane ahead.

"Sure, whatever." Shane groaned.

The Red Ranger backed up a bit before tensing all of his muscles. He tightened his body and charged straight at the wall, ramming a large hole straight into it. Ryleigh quickly followed Shane through the hole.

"Red, do you see anything?" Ryleigh asked as they crawled under the pipes.

"Negative, Pink." Shane shook his head.

"Do we have to use war terminology?" Ryleigh asked.

"It sounds cool." Shane shrugged. "And besides, we're kind of like soldiers."

"Katelyn!" Ryleigh called out in a hoarse voice, trying to disguise her actual one. "Katelyn, where are you?"

The two started to pick up on whimpering. As they crawled deeper through the pipes, the whimpering started to get louder. Shane turned his head to see a clearing where the sound was getting louder and louder. He led Ryleigh through the gap.

"Katelyn!" Ryleigh exclaimed as she saw her new friend lying on the ground, clearly bruised. "Are you okay?"

"Pink Ranger?" Katelyn asked, somewhat alarmed. "You have to go away! He's going to come for you!"

"Who's going to come for you?" Shane asked.

"Me." a tall boy with blonde hair said before tackling Shane to the ground.

"How did you do that?" Shane asked, looking at him. "I thought you were human."

"_Were_." the boy smirked and kicked Shane into the wall. The force of the kick sent Shane straight through it, creating a gaping hole.

"Ow..." Shane groaned on the ground.

"Red!" Ryleigh exclaimed and grabbed the boy from the hips. She picked him up and threw him at the opposite wall.

"You're not too strong for me." the boy got up and ran straight for Ryleigh.

When Ryleigh got a good look at his face, she could tell that his eyes were glowing a blood red. This wasn't typical of humans.

"_What _are you?" Ryleigh asked before being thrown to the ground by his strong force.

"I'm your biggest nightmare." the boy smirked and stood over Ryleigh.

Shane didn't give the boy a chance to do anything to Ryleigh as he smashed him in the head with a pipe he broke off. The boy fell to the ground and Shane shot him straight through the chest with his blaster, killing him.

"You...you just killed him!" Ryleigh exclaimed. "Red, you killed him!"

"With good reason." Shane defended his actions.

"P-Power Rangers don't kill humans!"

"Not unless they're provoked." Shane put his blaster away. "And that time, we were definitely provoked."

"And now where do you think we'll get answers from?" Ryleigh asked.

"Can somebody just help me?" Katelyn asked and stood up.

"First, let's get to her room. Then, we can talk." Shane told his teammate.

"Okay..." Ryleigh nodded. "Maybe I need a minute to process what just happened."


	7. The Cult

**==Los Angeles, California, United States==**

Ryleigh, Johnny, and Shane all sat in a circle in Ryleigh's dorm room. After what happened with Katelyn earlier, it was only safe that she called Johnny up. He thought it would be best if he stayed with his girlfriend for a few days.

"Okay, I think we're going to need a notepad." Shane announced as he picked one up. "There are too many things unaccounted for that we need to take notice of."

"It's your call. You're the leader." Ryleigh reminded him.

"What was it like?" Johnny asked. He saw that Ryleigh and Shane gave him a confused look. "You know, the rescue?"

"It was weird." Shane shuddered. "It was something I never want to have to do again."

"You killed a human being." Ryleigh said, stone cold. "The first Power Ranger _ever _to kill a human."

"Please don't remind me." Shane shook his head. "It was self-defense."

"There was something...off...about the guy." Ryleigh stated. "Something about him didn't seem human, even though he was."

The three of them sat down and started to think. Since Johnny didn't actually take part in the rescue, he didn't have much input. Ryleigh and Johnny looked at Shane, who seemed a bit uneasy.

"Are you okay?" Ryleigh asked.

"I'm trying to think." Shane started. "If he was a human but then gained some capabilities that were superhuman, there must have been a _source_."

"What do you mean?" Johnny asked.

"I'm trying to say that there must be a whole organization behind this. Something so off-the-charts couldn't have been created for sparse use. There has to be way more of this than we know."

"It's like an iceberg." Ryleigh understood Shane's connection. "Despite the small surface above the water, there's a whole connection going down under that we don't know about."

"So let's start with what we know." Johnny suggested.

"We know that this is some sort of initiation." Ryleigh started. She noticed Shane started to write things down.

"We also know that so far the two cases reported involve a male student kidnapping a female student." Johnny continued.

"And we know that in both instances the male attempted to rape the female." Ryleigh said.

"And we also know that the male had to take some sort of substance in order for his humanity to be pushed to its limits." Johnny added in.

"Slow down, I need to write this down word-for-word." Shane complained.

"Okay." Ryleigh sighed. "The male who was involved in the Stanford case committed suicide, so maybe that is a self-inflicted punishment."

"So far we have: it's an initiation, a male kidnapping a female, the male attempting to rape the female, there's a substance being ingested by the male in order to gain more strength, and suicide is what happens to a failed initiate." Shane listed out. "That's all we know so far."

"This is boiling my brain." Ryleigh pushed her temples with her thumbs.

"And the sucky thing is that the only way we can find out more is if another attack happens." Johnny groaned. "I really hate this."

"I thought being Power Rangers again would be fun." Shane chuckled.

"It's _never _fun." Johnny agreed.

"You know what? It's getting kind of late. How about we all just take a break?" Ryleigh suggested.

"That's a good idea." Johnny agreed.

"I could go for such a long nap it's not even funny." Shane chuckled. "Let's just hit the bed and continue this tomorrow."

* * *

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

In the basement of an old abandoned school building, a large amount of male students gathered around a man who was about ten times their age. The man stood on a block to make his presence larger to the audience.

"My initiates!" the man began. "Our first two initiations have resulted in failure, causing great concern for me. If we would like this to go through, it would require full success. We absolutely cannot have mistakes being thrown around everywhere."

"It was the first two initiates we sent." one student stated from the audience. "They were not fit for the task and they failed miserably."

"So what are you saying we do?" the man asked his pupil.

"I'll go out next, I know what I'm capable of." the student stood up tall. "I will _not _bring you failure."

"You know what happens if you do manage to fail, correct?"

"Cyanide." the student answered. "I know very well."

"Not to mention the Power Rangers that have been thwarting our missions." another student stated. "It's largely their fault, as well."

"Yes, we have to find a way to avoid those _roaches_." the man shuddered. "They bring nothing but shame to our family."

"So I say we dispose of them."

"It is not that easy to rid the Power Rangers. They took down a force of magical Shadows a couple of years prior." the man explained. "If anything, we have to play this safe."

"How about we send two initiates at the same time?" the first student suggested. "We can go as pairs."

"That may work." the man nodded. "Okay, pick your partner and get your task started tonight. I will look that you do not fail me."

"What if the Rangers manage to walk in on us again?"

"You idiot, that is why I am sending you in pairs!" the man shouted. "Failure shall not and _will _not be accepted! I look to see that your powers can make you far more powerful than those masked vigilantes!"

The first student gulped and nodded. He glared at another to make sure that they would silently partner and the two of them ran out when the man allowed them to. They had a task at hand, and they would not be the two to accept failure. They would destroy the Rangers and continue with what their ultimate goal was.


	8. A Busy Weekend

**==Los Angeles, California, United States==**

Ryleigh's alarm clocked buzzed loudly, waking both her and her boyfriend. Finally the seemingly endless school week came to a conclusion and everyone could spend their first true weekend at college.

"Did you have to keep your alarm for a weekend morning?" Johnny asked out of frustration.

"I guess I just forgot to set it off." Ryleigh scratched her head. "I'm _so _tired."

"Yeah, no kidding. You woke us up with an alarm on a Saturday morning." Johnny replied sarcastically.

"Uh, sorry about that." Ryleigh apologized.

"It's cool." Johnny smiled and kissed his girlfriend on the cheek.

"At least we can spend the entire day together." Ryleigh shrugged.

"Even though I have to leave tomorrow morning." Johnny reminded her. "Your college isn't too lenient on overnight guests."

Both of them got up and walked around the room looking for stuff to use to get ready. Since Ryleigh was very well organized, it wasn't hard for her to find all of her shower supplies. Johnny, on the other hand, hand things scattered all around the small dorm room. When he got his stuff all together, Ryleigh looked into the mirror.

"I need to get ready, I look like a total mess." Ryleigh joked.

"Yeah, but you're _my_ beautiful little mess."

* * *

Since it was still morning and he hadn't exactly eaten anything the night before, Shane thought it would be a good idea to go out and get breakfast. Lucky for him, there was a good donut place on campus where he could go grab a bite. He walked in and stood patiently in line for his turn to come.

While he stood in line, he thought about a few things. The first thing that bothered him was that he had killed a human being. While it had been provoked, it was something that he couldn't easily digest; _nobody _could easily digest that. The second thing was that no questions could have been asked. Since the perpetrator was dead and Katelyn was clueless about the whole situation, there wasn't any information that could have been obtained.

"May I take your order, sir?" the person at the counter asked Shane, who was lost in thought.

"Oh, yeah!" Shane zapped back into reality. "I'll just take two glazed donuts and a medium coffee."

As he waited for his order, more thoughts started to come to him. They had just finished off one menace at Smalltown and now they had something else to go through. Not to mention the fact that they were fighting humans...or at least what was left of humans.

"Here's your order, sir." the cashier handed Shane his bag and cup.

"Thank you." Shane nodded and took a seat.

It was hard for Shane to eat his food when there was so much left unanswered. He didn't want to be the one to take a nice relaxing break when there was a job to be done. Not to mention the fact that Ryleigh probably wanted to spend as much time with her boyfriend as possible before he had to leave, making Shane the sole Ranger on duty.

Shane finished his food and wrapped it back up in the back. When he walked out of the door, he tossed everything in the recycling bin. He put his hands in his pockets and walked down a secluded path to his dorm hall. As he was walking, he started to hear two students talk about something in a really sketchy and dark tone. Curious, he hid behind a corner and listened in.

"Yeah, it's practically a no-go." the first student said.

"We can't really do anything until we get the proper orders." the second student replied.

"Man, I _really _want to get on the field." the first student jittered.

"I know, we're only new recruits and we have _so _much to prove!"

"What about tonight?" the first student asked. Shane's ears perked up as he heard this.

"We have to handpick our girls." the second student answered.

"I wish they would just make themselves known to us."

"Yeah, but we're the ones who have a name to prove." the second student shrugged.

Shane instantly realized what they were talking about ran in and grabbed the first student by his neck and held him against the wall. He kneed him in the gut and held him there until the second student grabbed him and threw him off.

"What are you doing?" the first student asked in rage.

"I know who you are!" Shane shouted. "You kidnapped her!"

"What...what are you talking about?" the second student asked.

"You guys were talking about the kidnappings!" Shane exclaimed. "I heard you conversation!"

"Um, no, we're on the football team and that's what we were talking about, weirdo." the first student answered, still clearly angry.

"Then what did you mean by 'get on the field'?" Shane asked.

"We were talking about our upcoming game against Arizona." the second student answered.

"Then what did you have to prove?"

"We're both wide receivers." the first student said. "We're freshmen who were recruited from high school and we were talking about how we had to make a name on our team..."

"Then what did you mean by tonight and handpicking girls?" Shane asked, realizing how much of an idiot he actually was.

"We were talking about going to parties and picking up girls. We're on the football team, you know..." the second student groaned. "You should just walk away right now."

"I'm...uh...I'm sorry." Shane apologized before walking off. That was painfully embarrassing for him, but he knew it had to mean something. His task was his first priority, and everything was worth questioning when there was still a criminal at large.

* * *

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

Raylan and Tyler woke up to a harsh knocking sound on their doors. Both Rangers got up and slowly answered the door to find an impatient Emma standing there.

"Do you have to be so early?" Tyler asked her. "It's kinda early in the morning."

"It's two in the afternoon." Emma stated. "You guys don't need to sleep in that much."

"Oh, come on. Let us be tired." Raylan pleaded with his girlfriend.

"No, you guys are big growing men and you need to eat. Let's go and get lunch." Emma grabbed then by their arms.

"We're not even ready yet!" Tyler protested.

"Then throw on a t-shirt or something because I'm not going out by myself."

"You have a Morpher on you..." Tyler groaned. "You have the best protection in the world. Not to mention you have an extremely defensive boyfriend with teleporting powers."

Just then, their Morphers started to warm up. At first, the Rangers were confused. Usually, their Morphers only warmed up when there was a Shadow attack, but something was different about this time. The trio turned to Gadget-X.

"What's going on?" Raylan asked the robot.

"I've programmed your Morphers to warm whenever there's a report of a kidnapping on or off campus."

"Shit, let's get out there." Raylan commanded the two.

"Are you kidding me?" Tyler asked. "It's only the afternoon."

"Do we have much of a choice here?"


	9. Chase and Alli and Chase

_Here's another past moment/flashback for one of the Rescue Ops Rangers! This time, it's about Alli Matthews, the Pink Rescue Ops Ranger. The main purpose of this chapter is to give some insight as to why Alli initially had some unexplained and strange hate for Chase._

_Anyways, on with the story!_

**==London, Greater London, England==**

Eight-year-old Allison Matthews had finally finished her day at school and came home for the rest of the day. She still had on her school uniform and her pale blonde hair tied in a semi-formal ponytail. She walked in to see her mom cooking something.

"Mommy, what are you cooking?" she asked.

"Alli, darling, I'm baking cookies." her mother answered.

"Can I help you, mommy?" Alli asked. "I like cookies."

"My, my, Alli." her mother smiled. "Come here and I'll let you do some mixing."

"Yay!" Alli squealed and stood on a stool by the counter. She looked into the bowl that her mother was mixing the powder in and looked back to her mother. "Mommy, I thought you were baking cookies!"

"I am." Alli's mother told her. "But they look like a mixture of powder and batter first."

"What's batter?"

"Batter is the thick gooey stuff that smells really good." her mother answered.

"Really?" Alli asked and leaned over the metal bowl. "Mmm, it smells chocolatey!"

"That's because I'm making chocolate chip cookies."

"That's my favorite kind!" Alli exclaimed and hopped up and down out of joy.

"That's why I'm making them!" Alli's mother kissed her cheek. She sighed and read the rest of the instructions. "Okay, I have to put these in the oven."

"Is that something I can do? I wanna help!" Alli asked.

"Mommy's little helper is going to need to sit this one out. The oven is dangerous and this is something your mommy is going to need to do. We don't want you to get yourself burnt." her mother informed her.

"Okay, mommy." Alli nodded.

"Why don't you go outside and play with the other kids?" Alli's mother suggested as she looked out the window. "It's looks like they're having fun."

"Okay!" Alli smiled and bolted out of the back door. She could see all of her friends and neighbors around her age running around the backyard playing with a black and white ball. Curious, she walked over to them. "What's that?" she asked one of her friends.

"That's a football!" her friend, a young brunette girl replied. "The new kid plays with it!"

"There's a new kid?" Alli asked. "Who?"

Then, she saw what might have been the biggest eight-year-old on the planet. And by big, he wasn't muscular, he was just fat. She had a hard time believing that he was the same age.

"His name is Cameron Whiteshire, but he tells everybody to call him Chase! He's eleven years old!" her friend answered before running back into the mess with the 'football'.

"Okay!" Alli chirped and ran into the middle of the mess. Things were going pretty well until finally 'Chase' picked up the ball and held it high above everyone else.

"How about we play a real game of football?" Chase asked all of the kids. He smiled as he saw them all nod. "Okay, all of us split up into two teams of three."

Alli, still confused about the rules of the sport, wandered around before realizing that there were already two teams of three. After doing a quick count of all the kids in the courtyard, she realized that there were a total of seven. She was being left out.

"Hey, guys!" she called out. "What team am I on?"

"Oh, is the poor little girl not on a team?" Chase teased her. "That's too bad for you."

"But...but...I wanna play!" Alli's eyes started to water up. "It's not fair!"

"You should have been quicker than that!" Chase teased and put his foot on the ball.

Alli looked to her friends for some sort of backing, but all of their eyes were focused on Chase's ball. None of her friends were sticking up for her. Chase was a bully, and he was picking on her.

"But...but..." Alli started to cry. "Please!"

Chase shook his head and then tossed the ball into the middle of the court. All of the kids started to listen to Chase before they played the game of football. Alli watched pathetically from the sidelines.

"This isn't fair..." she cried and walked into her house.

When she walked in while loudly crying, her mom quickly approached her. She picked her daughter up to try to quiet her down, but it didn't seem to work.

"Darling, what's wrong?" her mother asked. "Did you get hurt?"

"There's a new boy named Chase and he's bullying me!" Alli complained and sucked on her thumb.

"Do you want me to talk to him or his father?" Alli's mother asked.

"No, mommy, it's fine." Alli sniffled. "I don't like Chase at all."

"It's okay, sweetheart." Alli's mother kissed her daughter on the forehead. "If it makes you feel better, the cookies are done."

"Really?" Alli asked as a smile started to form on her face. "Are the chocolate chip cookies really done?

"Yes, and you can have the first taste."

"Yay!"

* * *

**~~Ten Years Later~~**

**==Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States==**

Chase Vereen held his girlfriend, Alli, tightly in bed before they were about to go to sleep. Since they and the rest of their friend decided to rent a house out together for college, it helped their relationship further.

"So that's the story of the big bad bully from your old house?" Chase asked his girlfriend. "And was his name the real reason that you didn't like me at first?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Alli snuggled into her boyfriend's arms. "But you're different, you're much different."

"I love you." Chase kissed Alli passionately on the lips.

"I love you too." Alli smiled and looked directly into her boyfriend's eyes.

"But we need to go to sleep, we both have early classes tomorrow." Chase reminded her.

"You're right." Alli sighed. "And don't squeeze the hell out of me during the night. You have a bad habit of doing that."

"Sorry, you're just too cuddly!" Chase apologized.

Alli closed her eyes and leaned into her boyfriend, who returned the gesture. Chase Vereen was a different kind of Chase, and she couldn't have been more thankful to have him in her life.


	10. Double Attack

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

Raylan, Emma, and Tyler ran outside as quick as they could and morphed when they assumed that they weren't anywhere in sight. Once morphed, they used their noise detector to help track the sound of anyone screaming in the near distance. They were able to pick up the faint noise of a girl crying out for help.

"This way!" Raylan exclaimed and followed his ears.

The trio crept through the alleyways of Stanford in order to try and find whoever was being held captive. As they walked through the deserted roads, the screaming and pleading for help started to get more and more audible.

"Is it just me or does this sound a bit familiar?" Emma asked.

"Obviously, we just did a rescue mission a few days ago." Tyler reminded her.

"No...I mean the person screaming." Emma took notice. "The screaming sounds like someone we know."

"I don't hear it." Raylan shook his head. "We'll find out when we get there."

"I don't have a good feeling about this." Emma stated. "Something tells me that we're in for a shocker."

"All we can do is hope that you're wrong." Tyler shrugged.

"I hope I'm wrong, too..."

The group finally reached a wall where the screaming had reached an all-time high. They knew they were close and marked the location of the wall where they would barge in.

"I think I'll give you the honors." Raylan stepped aside and pushed his girlfriend out front.

"Thanks, asshole." Emma replied sarcastically.

"Hey, you're the one with the premonition!" Raylan exclaimed in defense.

"Fine." Emma groaned and lunged at the wall.

The force of her suit hitting the bricks created a massive hole and crumbled the wall straight open. The three Rangers rushed into the building and started to navigate around the pipes and bars. At this point, the screaming was to a point where they no longer needed their noise sensors to be able to detect.

"It's coming from there!" Raylan shouted and pointed to a direction. The other two followed him straight through where they saw a blonde girl lying face down on the ground.

"Are you okay?" Tyler asked and flipped her over. "Oh my!" he exclaimed when he saw the face. It was Sydney Evans.

"Sydney!" Emma exclaimed and looked at the Ice Ranger. "Are you okay?"

"I have no idea what happened..." she groaned.

"We have one of your own!" a male voice grunted and tackled Emma to the ground.

"Get off her!" Raylan roared and ripped the guy off of his girlfriend. When they were level, Raylan sent a punch straight at the guy's face.

"You're pathetic!" the male shouted and punched Raylan in his gut. The punch was so strong that it sent Raylan straight to the ground.

"Raylan!" Emma exclaimed and rushed to her aching boyfriend. "What just happened?"

Tyler grabbed the male by his face and rammed his head into a wall. The student forced Tyler off and shoved him roughly. By this time, a second student had appeared by the first one's side.

"This isn't good..." Tyler gulped as he lay on the ground.

The two students hulked over him and repeatedly kicked at his gut. Tyler, unable to do anything else, just lay there and took the hits. Sydney watched in pain as they beat him relentlessly. She held her Morpher tightly.

"It's morphin' time!" she shouted and rose to her feet as the Ice Ranger.

One of the males ran over to her and tried to grab her by her hip, but missed entirely as she sidestepped out of his way. When he tumbled to the ground, Sydney picked him up and shoved him roughly to a wall.

"I'm going to kill you!" she shrieked and pushed her blaster into his back. Containing anger, she fired her blaster multiple times at him, killing him on the spot.

Raylan and Emma were able to get up and grab the second student by his throat. Raylan lifted him against a wall and held him there.

"Tell us what you were planning on doing!" Raylan roared.

"Never..." the student hissed. "You'll never learn our ways."

Raylan growled and threw him to the ground. Realizing that he was about to die, the student pulled out a cyanide pill. Before he could ingest it, however, Raylan smacked it out of his hand.

"No!" Raylan scolded him and stood over him. "Tell us everything!"

"You'll never know!" the student spat at him.

Raylan grabbed the boy's chest and smashed him to the ground repeatedly. He wanted to hurt him to the point where he would eventually give in.

"What are you trying to accomplish?" he asked Raylan.

"I want to know what you're trying to do by taking this innocent girls!" Raylan exclaimed. "And how did you get Sydney?"

"We know who you are." the boy breathed. It was evident that his life energy was slowly leaving him.

"Wait...wait!" Raylan shouted, realizing that the boy was slowly giving in.

"You lose..." his life finally left him, leaving him dead on the ground. The four Rangers powered down when it ended.

"NO!" Raylan roared and stood up. "It can't be like this!"

"Take a deep breath." Emma urged her boyfriend. "We're defeating them, isn't that good for now?"

"Yes, but we shouldn't have people suffer because of it." Raylan replied. "It's better if we're able to end what they're trying to accomplish before they can even attempt to accomplish it."

"Sydney, are you alright?" Tyler asked her. They could see she was scared.

"I...I don't know how they got to me." Sydney shuddered. "They...they just found me and took me."

"They were insulting us." Raylan stated. "They know who we are and they want to send a message."

"They're telling us to back off, and they have the power to do so." Tyler continued.

"No, we can't back off. We'll win, and we'll win hard."


	11. Stress

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

The four Rangers camped out in Raylan's room where they put a towel around Sydney's back to help comfort her. While all of them had been kidnapped before, it was only for Ranger business. None of them had been kidnapped for a ritual rape.

"How did they get to you?" Emma asked the Ice Ranger when she started to calm down a bit.

"He...he came into an audition for a commercial that I was auditioning for and...and...he just grabbed me and ran off when nobody was paying attention." Sydney explained. "Since nobody expected me anywhere else, nobody knew I was gone missing."

"How did he know you were a Ranger?" Raylan asked. "That's the part that's making me feel really uncomfortable." he glanced to his girlfriend as he said this.

"I...I don't know..." Sydney shuddered. "He just said that I would be his 'Power Ranger bitch' and that I was bait for you guys."

"They think you're bait?" Tyler asked.

"They must not take us seriously." Raylan agreed. "If you, a Power Ranger, are bait, then what does that make us?"

"Goats." Sydney answered. "To them, you're goats."

"We're their goats?" Raylan asked, visibly furious. "They think that the Power Rangers, the savior of the world, are goats?"

"They have good reason to think so, too." Emma nodded. "They almost kicked out asses...twice."

"Not to mention that we had to resort to killing them." Tyler added in. "We usually don't kill _human beings_, but we had to kill two just then."

"They're getting the best of us, Raylan." Sydney told him. "We're showing them out weak side. And by them kidnapping me helplessly, it created a huge weak spot on our team."

"They know we're just scared teenagers..." Emma cupped her hand over her mouth.

"How can we make assumptions if we don't even know what we're dealing with?" Raylan asked.

"How can we _not _make assumptions?" his girlfriend asked back. "Making assumptions is the only thing we can arm ourselves with at a time like this."

The four of them sat in a circle on the floor quietly. Never had they been pushed into such a dilemma where they didn't know what they were dealing with. Previously, they had Gadget-X and even the fake Gehn to tell them what their mission was. Here, all they had was the news and their noise amplifiers. Not to mention the fact that they had made zero progress with identifying their enemy.

"How about we just call this a night and continue things tomorrow?" Tyler suggested.

"I agree with Tyler." Raylan stuck a thumbs up. "My brain is dead."

"Sydney, you can stay in my room for the night." Emma helped Sydney up. "My roommate is gone for the weekend so we have space. I'll let you use my bed and I'll just take the floor."

"Thanks, Emma." Sydney mumbled. "I just need to think about what happened."

"I think we all do." Raylan agreed. "These dudes are pushing my buttons..._hard_."

"It's okay, sweetie." Emma kissed her boyfriend's cheek. "Just rest up and we'll think about this tomorrow."

"Okay, Emma." Raylan sighed. "Goodnight, I love you."

"Goodnight, I love you, too."

* * *

**==Los Angeles, California, United States==**

Ryleigh and Johnny were in Ryleigh's room sitting next to each other on her bed. Emma just called them to talk about Sydney's incident, which scared the living hell out of Ryleigh.

"Johnny, they know who we are." Ryleigh trembled in her boyfriend's arms.

"Ryleigh, it's okay." Johnny squeezed her tight. "If anybody comes to get you, they have to come through me."

"But they're relentless!" Ryleigh exclaimed. "They'll _kill _you! I don't want them to hurt you!"

"I'm not going to let them do anything to me. I'd rather fight for you than go down without one."

"Johnny..."

"Ryleigh, everything's gonna be okay." Johnny kissed his girlfriend lightly. "Nobody is allowed to lay a finger on you."

"That's hard to estimate..."

"Taking Sydney was one of the worst decisions of their lives. They're going to regret it hard." Johnny assured her. "And if they even _think _about taking you, they're all dead. I can promise you that."

"I love how confident you are." Ryleigh chuckled. "I'm proud of you."

"Of course I'm confident!" Johnny kissed her again. "It's the only way I can protect you when nothing's going on."

"I just hope that nobody comes to get me..." Ryleigh looked off in the other direction.

"I promise, the minute that somebody touches you, I _will _be there."

"Really?"

"Of course, baby. I'll make them fear me."

"That's really relieving to hear." Ryleigh sighed. "Things are starting to scare me here. I just need a little reassuring. I don't like the way everything is going."

"I can stay here as long as you want me to." Johnny assured her.

"But the people who keep records are going to kick you out eventually."

"They don't have to know." Johnny shrugged. "I'm a Power Ranger, I can teleport."

"Johnny, I love you so much." Ryleigh hugged her boyfriend tightly.

"Ryleigh, I love you too." Johnny hugged his girlfriend back.

The recent events were really scaring the two of them. Neither of them could predict the future and they didn't know who this cult would come after next. They could come after Ryleigh and they could even come after Johnny. They knew who the Rangers were and they would stop at nothing to bring their number one foe down.

* * *

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

After their recent loss to the Power Rangers, the man called an emergency meeting for all of his subjects. Once again, they gathered in the abandoned factory to come up with a new plan.

"We need a new plan." the man told his students angrily.

"We know who the Rangers are now." one of the students said. "It was a great idea tapping into the Red Ranger's suit at the UCLA attack to find out how to track the Morphers."

"We can track all of the Rangers." another student added in. "So they're all revealed to us."

"Then let's go into the offensive this time." the man told them.

"I say we kidnap two Rangers, one from each campus." a student suggested.

"Let's go with Yellow and Pink." another student suggested.

"Great idea, let's get started on this now."


	12. College Party

**==Stanford, California, United Stataes==**

The week came as usual and there were no attacks anywhere. Sydney was able to go home to worried parents and continue everything normally. Finally, it was the weekend and it was time for the Rangers to let loose and blow off some steam after the busy work week. Even though it was only a few weeks into college, things were piling up and stress was starting to show. Not to mention the fact that the Rangers were operating a crime sting. To calm his nerves, Raylan decided that it would be a good idea to take a relaxing walk around the campus and not think about anything that happened previously.

He paid mostly attention to the scenery and the architecture of the school. Unlike most schools which had a gothic architectural theme, Stanford had a tropical and Italian theme to it. The uniqueness of everything made him feel more at home and at peace with himself. While taking his walk, he saw Courtney Wright, the girl that the Rangers saved during their first sting operation, sitting with her friends on a bench. Knowing that he couldn't reveal his identity to her, Raylan smiled and casually walked past her.

Such things and people had made Raylan gain a new appreciation of life. They had experienced near death situations and came out alive with hope that they continue everyday. It wasn't easy for someone to wrap their head around the fact that they were kidnapped, and Raylan was appreciative of all the victims who were able to put such an ordeal behind them. Eventually on his walk, he managed to run into his lacrosse captain, Trent.

"Hey, dude!" Trent waved to Raylan and gave him a fist bump. "What're you doing around campus?"

"Just taking a walk around and looking at the scenery." Raylan answered. "What about you?"

"I was gonna go out and get some lunch, but now that I found you I have to ask you something." Trent started. "A couple of the teammates and I are trying to get a lacrosse party at my house tonight. There's gonna be a ton of music, girls, and alcohol. Are you down to come?" he asked.

"Uhh..." Raylan raised an eyebrow. "Thanks for the invite, but I don't really do any of that stuff. And besides, I have a girlfriend."

"Come on, bro!" Trent exclaimed. "You have to have one team bonding exercise with us at least!"

"Dude, I really can't be doing that to my girlfriend. She trusts me." Raylan stated.

"You can bring her along, then!" Trent invited. "Come on, just show up!"

"I don't even drink." Raylan shook his head. "Seriously, thanks for the invite, but I'm going to have to decline."

"Okay, how about this?" Trent proposed. "You come with your girlfriend, but you don't have to drink anything. I promise, it'll be fun!"

"Dude..." Raylan thought for a minute and then sighed. "Fine, I'll come. But if anything happens that I'm not too fond of, I'm leaving."

"Cool, sounds fair to me!" Trent smiled. "I'll see ya there at 10:30 PM! Don't be early!"

"I'll be sure of that." Raylan nodded and continued walking.

Despite being in college for quite some time, he had never actually been to a party. While he didn't intend on actually taking part in some of the party's main attractions, he thought it would be worthwhile to at least experience what a college party was like. He wasn't too happy with his decision, but he would have regretted not going down the line.

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" Emma asked as she looked in her mirror and combed her hair. Since she was going with Raylan, it only made sense for her to look her best. "I mean, it sounds like fun and all, but are you really up to it?"

"I mean, what else do I have to do?" Raylan shrugged. "And you look amazing, by the way."

"Thank you!" Emma smiled and showed off the yellow dress she was wearing to her boyfriend. "It's my favorite color, as I'm sure you know."

"I just have to make sure that I don't do anything bad." Raylan sighed.

"And you have to make sure that _I _don't do anything bad." Emma chuckled. "I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to this."

"Remember what happened the last time we went to a 'party' together?" Raylan asked.

"Oh..." Emma groaned and thought way back about the whole Isabelle incident. While everything ended up well in the end, it was a hair-pulling experience for everyone.

"Don't worry, I don't plan on meeting any Isabelles at this place, let along anybody in general." Raylan explained. "It's just going to be the lacrosse team and I pretty much know them all, so there's nothing that can really be taken out of it."

"I trust you, Raylan." Emma assured him. "Just have fun, for me at least?"

"Fine." Raylan nodded.

"Did you invite Tyler?" Emma asked. "I'm sure he'll be wondering where we all went."

"Yeah, I asked him if he wanted to come and he said 'no'." Raylan answered. "He was going to go hang out at one of his friend's houses tonight instead. They're playing some online game or something."

"Just let Tyler be Tyler." Emma smiled. "By the way, why are you wearing yellow and not red?" she asked and looked at his yellow Polo shirt.

"I'm not the Red Ranger..." Raylan groaned. "And I want to match with you."

"Your Ranger color is red enough for me." Emma chuckled. "And I'm pretty sure red would have gone with yellow just as well."

"Whatever..." Raylan chuckled. "Let's just go to the party and get this over with."

"Remember, don't do anything stupid!" Emma reminded her boyfriend.

"Emma, I think I know how to keep myself under control." Raylan defended himself. "And besides, I feel like it's you that needs to be watched over."


	13. Party Night

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

Raylan and Emma arrived at the party around eleven at night to find that it was mad crazy. Kegs were everywhere and alcoholic beverages were being served left, right, and center. The music was blasting rap as the partygoers were throwing it down in the house. Emma could tell there was a look of concern on her boyfriend's face.

"Is everything alright?" she asked him. "You don't look too good."

"I've just never seen anything like this." Raylan looked around the house. "This is insanity."

"Yeah, I guess this is what freedom really is." Emma shrugged and inspected the bar. "I'm going to...uh...go get a drink or something."

"Really?" Raylan asked in surprise. "You drink?"

"There's a first time for everything!" Emma exclaimed and walked over to the bar.

"Crazy girl." Raylan chuckled and smiled. He noticed Trent talking to a few girls. Making eye contact, Trent called Raylan over.

Over at the bar, Emma looked at what the bartenders were mixing in the drinks. She had never had any sort of alcoholic beverage before, but that was what college was for. She stood at the counter and waited for one of the bartenders to notice her. She made eye contact with one and he brought her a drink.

"I think you wanted one of these." the bartender handed Emma a red solo cup filled with vodka and lemonade.

"Um, thanks!" Emma smiled and sipped her drink slowly.

The bartender who served her the drink turned around to face another who was working with him. He made a motion for him to take notice of Emma's wristwatch.

"I think we got the right girl." the first bartender mumbled to the second one.

"You sure this is the girl? the second one asked him. "She looks like too much of a priss to...you know...be a Power Ranger."

"She's got the wristwatch, though. Custom made yellow Rolex!" the first bartender exclaimed.

"Well, did you bug her drink?"

"Yeah, I put some gnarly shit in there. She'll be out in a matter of no time."

Emma started to feel woozy and placed her hands on her temples. When the boys knew she was about to pass out, they quickly ushered her to a back room.

Raylan, who was called over by Trent, walked over to the captain of his lacrosse team. Trent was with about three fairly attractive girls who seemed like they were just looking for a quickie at a party.

"Hey, bro!" Trent gave Raylan a high five. "I knew you'd show up! Where's your girl at?"

"She's over at the bar getting something to drink." Raylan pointed over to her.

"So she's not with you at the moment?" Trent asked.

"What do you mean?" Raylan raised an eyebrow.

"These are some really nice girls who were telling me how much they're into you." Trent winked at the Ranger.

"Umm..." Raylan scratched the back of his head. "No thanks..."

"Come on, bro, your girl would be fine with it!" Trent tried to convince him. "Besides, they're single."

"No, I'm seriously fine." Raylan gave him two thumbs up. "I'll catch you later. I need to go over to my girlfriend."

Raylan walked over to the bar where Emma said she would be, but he wasn't able to find her anywhere. Confused, he turned around and looked for her. It was only a small house, where could she have gone?

Remembering that he had a noise tap, he ran into the bathroom to be able to morph without notice. In the bathroom, he morphed into his Ranger suit and tapped into his noise sensors. After a little bit of paying attention, he was able to tap into the sound of Emma struggling. Picking up on the location, he instantly unmorphed and ran out of the bathroom and into the upstairs bedroom.

"What's going on in here?" he asked when he was his girlfriend tied up on the floor, completely passed out. The two bartenders were standing over her.

"Get him!" the first bartender shouted, sending the second one to tackle Raylan.

The second bartender grabbed Raylan by his hips and power-threw him to the ground. While Raylan was lying in pain and unable to fight for a minute, the first bartender leaped out of the window with Emma. The second bartender followed quickly. When Raylan was able to get up, he also jumped out of the window.

He chased them for as far as he could. Eventually, they ran into an alley that turned into a dead end. Panicking, they turned around and faced Raylan, who had a slight smirk on his face.

"I guess this is where we draw the line." Raylan said. "Hand her over and we'll act like this never happened."

"No!" the first bartender shouted.

"It looks like you're going to have to go down the hard way, then." Raylan stated. "It's morphin' time!"

He felt his suit materialize around him and then ran straight for the two bartenders. The first one was able to evade him quickly, but the second one was directly in his path. Raylan grabbed his head and bashed it into the wall, killing him almost instantly. Raylan turned around to the first bartender and leaped on top of him.

"I'm going to kill you!" Raylan shouted.

"No you're not!" the first bartender shouted back and rolled over on top of Raylan. When on top of him, he sent as many punches he could to Raylan's helmet.

"You forget that my helmet protects me." Raylan said and threw him off of himself. "What do you need her for?" he asked, looking at how the unconscious Emma was lying right in between the two.

"You'll never know." the bartender hissed. "Our father would be very displeased with us."

"Your father?" Raylan asked.

"This isn't over yet! Father will be back!" he shouted and ran off into the distance.

Raylan unmorphed and hurried over to his unconscious girlfriend. He untied the binds from her and felt her to see if she was still alive. Knowing that she wouldn't be able to regain consciousness for a while, he picked her up and carried her off. He didn't know where to go or what to do, but he was scared. One by one, the Rangers were starting to be targeted by this secretive organization. These guys were gaining on the Rangers, and they were gaining on them fast.


	14. Ryleigh's Next

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

Raylan and Tyler brought Emma to their room to rest her up. She was obviously very confused...and drunk. Despite being kidna.'pped, she had no idea what happened to her. Her drink was spiked with some kind of drug that the bartenders used to render her unconscious while they performed their 'initiation'.

"Emma, are you okay?" Raylan asked her, stroking her cheek.

"You look funny." Emma giggled. Whatever was in her drink was still in her system.

"Man, she's completely gone." Tyler sighed. "We're just going to have to let her wait this out."

"She didn't have much to drink, though." Raylan commented.

"But whatever she had to drink overpowered her." Tyler said. "She's going to be gone for a while."

"Fuck, I knew we shouldn't have gone to that party." Raylan groaned. "It's all my fault!"

"Raylan, it's not your fault." Tyler placed his hand on his teammate's shoulder. "Do you want me to call the others down to help out? It's still a Friday night, there are two more days to the weekend, and I'm sure they'd be more than willing to fix a fellow Ranger up."

"That's be great." Raylan sighed and pressed his palm against his face. "I don't even know what to think of this."

"I know, they know exactly who we are." Tyler muttered. "I'm going to go give everyone else a call and see if they can come down." Tyler said and walked to a corner with his phone.

"You're going to be fine." Raylan reassured his girlfriend. "I'm so sorry I took you to that party."

"I've never seen a yellow fork before!" Emma babbled nonsensically.

"I know this sounds mean, but I can't help laughing at you." Raylan chuckled and kissed her cheek.

"That felt like skin." Emma giggled.

"Close enough." Raylan smiled.

To put it plainly, Raylan was horribly stressed out. The enemy was closing in on them, and they still knew absolutely nothing about them. This time, however, they were fighting off humans. Live human beings. Their own kind.

* * *

It took an extremely long time, but Raylan and Tyler were finally able to get some amount of sleep. While it wasn't much, it was enough to at least refuel them a bit for the next day. Tyler made calls to all of the other Rangers to get them down there. Tyler checked the time on his Morpher and saw that it was just about time for them to reach.

"Raylan...wake up." he groaned. "They should be here any minute..."

"I'm so tired..." Raylan sat up and scratched his eyes. "I didn't get any sleep at all."

"Yeah, neither did I." Tyler sighed. "Is Emma doing alright?"

"I don't know..." Raylan looked at his girlfriend's face, who was on the same bed as him. "She's still sleeping."

"Whatever she had knocked her out really quick." Tyler commented.

"Emma, wake up." Raylan whispered in her ear. She slowly started to stir.

"Huh...what?" Emma groaned and sat up next to her boyfriend. "How'd I get here?"

"You're back!" Raylan exclaimed and hugged her tightly.

"You're kinda squeezing me." Emma choked until her boyfriend finally let her free.

"Sorry." Raylan apologized. "You were completely out cold last night."

"What are you talking about?" Emma asked. "I thought I only had one cup to drink last night..."

"Yeah, and that one cup was drugged." Raylan told her. "The bartenders were working with the whole 'initiation' thing and targeted you."

"Oh, wow, I definitely missed a lot." Emma laughed. "What happened?"

"The usual, they kidnapped you and we rescued you."

"Did you find anything out?" she asked.

"They call their leader their 'Father'. I found out absolutely nothing else." Raylan explained. "And one of the bartenders got away."

"One? There were two?" Emma asked.

"Yeah, I had to kill the other one." Raylan told her.

"I'm sorry I put you through that crap."

"It was stressful, to say the least." Raylan shrugged. "You really had me worried."

"I figured..." Emma mumbled.

"Even then, the stuff you said last night made me crack the hell up." Raylan smiled.

"What do you mean?"

"You were rambling about how monkeys are painted with butter. Then you went on a tangent about how Finland isn't a real country because Fred Flintstone hadn't conquered it yet."

"Whoa, I must have been completely out." Emma scratched the back of her head.

"It was cute." Raylan kissed her cheek.

"Hey, sorry to ruin your lovefest, but everyone else is here." Tyler broke their moment. "I just got a text from them."

"The others?" Emma asked. "You called them down here?"

"We had no idea what you would be like in the morning." Raylan explained. "We thought it'd be best if we had everyone together for the weekend."

* * *

It didn't take long, but the other Rangers were able to get down overnight and book a hotel room for the five that weren't at Stanford. Mike, Shane, and Sydney decided to share rooms while Johnny and Ryleigh stayed together.

To keep their Saturday lively, they directly visited the dorms. Raylan, Emma, and Tyler were able to come downstairs to greet them.

"Hey, glad you guys could make it." Tyler told them. "We solved our little Emma issue, but we still have bigger problems."

"Can we talk about this when we're not in public?" Shane asked. "You're being a bit loud..."

"Yeah, come on in." Tyler brought them into the building and into their dorm room.

"So, what's happening around here?" Mike asked. "I think I'm the only person who isn't familiar with the situation, yet."

"Basically, this group of male students are kidnapping females in an attempt to rape them for some 'initiation'. We have no idea what this initiation is or what it accomplishes, but we know that we have to put a stop to it." Raylan explained. "We've got lives on the stake here."

"What _do _we know?" Mike asked.

"We know that Emma and I have been kidnapped." Sydney answered. "That's two of the three girls on the team."

"And there's one more..." Johnny mumbled. "Ryleigh..."

"Oh shit." Ryleigh cupped her hand over her mouth. "I'm next!"

"We have to keep a _tight _watch on her." Raylan instructed his team. "That means nobody can take their eyes off of her. I took my eyes off of Emma for less than a minute and she was gone."

"So we have to babysit her?" Shane asked.

"Pretty much." Tyler nodded. "It's our only option."

"It's a good thing we're all together, then." Emma said.

"Yeah, I think I need the comfort of this whole team." Ryleigh admitted. "I'm feeling really queasy about this all."

"It'll be okay." Johnny pulled her in close.

"I hope so."


	15. A Drunken Mistake

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

The next day was quite rough for the Rangers. While they had all eight members in one place, it still didn't stop whoever they were fighting off. Their best bet was that they would come for Ryleigh next. In order to prevent that, the Rangers had to watch Ryleigh at all times.

After each Ranger had their cycle with watching her throughout the day, they decided to go get some dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant. As they sat around the table together, they noticed Ryleigh didn't look very stressed at all.

"Why aren't you panicking like you usually do?" Johnny asked.

"Yeah, you look like you're taking this completely fine." Shane agreed.

"I kinda feel like a little kid with a babysitter again." Ryleigh chuckled. "And I have all of you watching my back. What do I have be afraid of?"

"It just makes me feel a bit nervous watching you like this." Johnny shrugged. "The boyfriend in me wants to see you worried."

"So you can comfort me or something?" Ryleigh asked and looked up to her boyfriend with confused eyes.

"Well, yeah..."

"Fine." Ryleigh smiled and leaned into Johnny.

"Um...PDA, much?" Tyler commented.

Johnny and Ryleigh both looked at Tyler and laughed. They didn't know how much longer they had together, so they decided it would be best to spend every minute together.

* * *

Dinner went great with absolutely nothing wrong to interrupt it. The eight Rangers walked over to the hotel that the others rented to hang out for the rest of the night. It seemed as if nothing could go wrong.

"You know, I anticipated this night ending much more horribly than it actually did." Mike admitted.

"Yeah, everything went well." Shane agreed.

"Things could have been worse, but I'm glad they weren't." Johnny said and wrapped his arm around his girlfriend. "I'm glad you're okay."

"I'm glad I'm okay, too. I'm glad I have you guys to back me up." Ryleigh said.

"Let's just celebrate a night well spent!" Mike exclaimed and pulled out a handle of vodka and some Coca Cola. The action drew cheers from the entire team.

"Oh man, I think we _all _need a drink." Tyler stated.

"Yeah, what a great way to blow off some steam!" Sydney agreed. "Pour us the shots!"

"Is...is that?" Raylan asked and pointed to the handle. "Um..."

"Relax, we don't have to drink." Emma leaned into her boyfriend.

"Yeah, I don't think I trust that stuff after last night." Raylan gulped.

"I'm with you on that one." Emma chuckled.

Mike handed everyone apart from Raylan and Emma red solo cups to where they each poured themselves the mixture of vodka and Coke. They held their glasses in the air and waited for someone to send it off.

"To Ryleigh and a unified night!" Johnny exclaimed and held his cup in the air

"Cheers!" they all shouted and started to drink.

* * *

By the end of the night, everyone had passed out in the hotel room. Since Raylan and Emma were the only ones who had stayed sober, they were the ones to get up first. While they didn't have anything to drink, they still had a hard time not getting crazy with their friends. When they woke up, they found the room in a mess.

"We're going to have to clean this up if we don't want to pay damages." Raylan groaned and tried to fully open his eyes.

"It was worth it, though." Emma sighed.

"Wait a minute..." Raylan mumbled and counted the people in the room. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...we only have seven people!"

"What are you talking about?" Emma asked and looked around. "Whoa...where's Ryleigh!?"

"We fucking lost Ryleigh!" Raylan shouted. "Are you kidding me?"

"We had one job!"

"Us and alcohol do _not _mix." Raylan groaned. "EVERYONE, WAKE UP!" he roared.

Everyone groaned and tried to sit up wherever they passed out. It took them a while to open their eyes, but when they did, they could tell that Raylan and Emma were fuming.

"What gives?" Mike asked when he was finally awake. "Man, I have such a hangover..."

"We're missing Ryleigh!" Emma exclaimed.

"What are you talking about? She's right here." Johnny groaned and showed them what he was cuddling. "Wait a minute...this is a pillow."

"That's definitely not Ryleigh." Emma crossed her arms.

"Hey, where's Ryleigh?" Johnny asked.

"That's what we've been trying to tell you!" Emma facepalmed. "We lost her!"

"Damn it!" Johnny shouted and punched the wall as hard as he could. "Fuck everything!"

"Listen, it's not too late." Raylan told him. "We can still go through our normal procedure and try to find her."

"Raylan, we're all hungover!" Johnny replied. "I don't even think our feral instincts can keep us up!"

"It's not like we have much of a choice."

"Everyone get up, we're going on a search mission!" Johnny yelled at everyone else. "I can't believe I let this happen."

"Johnny, it's not your fault." Raylan sat next to the Green Ranger. "It's all of our faults."

"She was more of my responsibility than anyone else's." Johnny covered his face with his hands.

"No, she was equally everyone's responsibility." Raylan put his arm around him. "We're going to find her no matter what it takes."

"I can do this." Johnny nodded. "I want to be the one to save her. She's my girlfriend."

"If that's what makes you happy." Raylan said. "We'll stray behind in case something bad happens, but we'll be there with you."

"We'll make sure whoever took her pays..._hard_." Emma said and sat on Johnny's other side. "Ryleigh means as much to us as she means to you and we're going to get her back."

"Then let's go and get her back!" Johnny instructed his teammates when he saw that they were all fully awake.

"It's morphin' time!"


	16. Feast

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

The seven remaining Rangers ran around through campus with Johnny at the helm. Ryleigh was _his _girlfriend and it would only be fair for him to go in for the big save. Since they had their noise amplifiers, it was easier for them to pay attention to any familiar sounds

Fortunately, Johnny knew his girlfriend in and out and was able to pinpoint where her screams for help were coming from. He felt like everything was his fault. He knew that the drinking from the previous night would have some sort of consequence, but he was only expecting something like a headache. He never expected his girlfriend to be taken like such.

"Guys, I think I'm picking her voice up from over here!" Johnny shouted in the alleyway and ran over to a broken hole in the wall. "Huh, it looks like someone's been here before."

"This is where we came for the first kidnapping." Raylan commented and took notice of the surroundings.

"Guys, we've been here before!" Emma exclaimed. "Play it safe, we don't know what we're dealing with here."

Johnny led the six other Rangers through the small hole and into the edge of the building. Like all buildings, they had to get through the initial framework and pipes that lined the walls. It was a bit of a trek, but it was something that was forced on them.

As they walked, Johnny couldn't help but feel sick in his stomach. Sydney had been kidnapped and Raylan had let his girlfriend slip his grasp before, but now Johnny was in that place. The feeling stung and he didn't know what to expect. Whatever he had to fight off had kept his girlfriend with them and intended to keep it that way. It was all fair game for them.

Despite him feeling a bit scared, it was an extremely familiar situation. Back when the Rangers had first acquired their powers, Ryleigh and Raylan _had _both died at different points. Raylan's situation was a bit different and he was able to pull himself out by himself. Ryleigh, on the other hand, required saving from Johnny and the rest of the Rangers. Ryleigh had managed to find herself in a similar situation later on when she was kidnapped by a Shadow-infused human in their school named Kyle. He had beaten and raped her to the point where she needed her Ranger friends around her. She needed the same kind of saving again.

"Shh..." Johnny shushed the Rangers to pick up some noise. "Ryleigh!" he shouted and ran over to where he heard her voice.

They found Ryleigh beaten and helpless on the ground, a sight that they were somewhat used to seeing. Surrounding her were five male students with blood red irises. The boys noticed them and turned around to face them.

"Leave her alone!" Johnny shouted.

"Or what?" the boy in the middle asked with a light chuckled.

"We'll beat the shit out of you." Johnny threatened. "This is your last warning."

The student in the middle laughed and backed himself up to where Ryleigh was groaning on the ground. He cocked his leg back all the way and kicked her as hard as he could in the hip. The sound she made when she flew and hit a wall snapped something inside of Johnny. He ran straight at the boy and threw him off his feet. He picked him up from his neck and held him in the air.

"Nobody touches her like that!" he shouted and slammed him against a wall.

The other four students realized they were losing and ran in for help. However, they were outnumbered greatly as the other Rangers intercepted them. It was just a pointless fight for power with Ryleigh still stuck in the middle. Johnny, realizing that his girlfriend still needed help, dropped his opponent and ran over to her. Mike covered the guy that was fighting Johnny by holding him back.

"I can't believe I let this happen to you." Johnny whispered to his girlfriend as he kneeled by her side.

"It's...it's okay." Ryleigh whimpered.

"I'm so sorry." Johnny unmorphed and rubbed her face. "You're so helpless..."

"Johnny, it's really okay." Ryleigh tried to crack a smile through her pain.

"I...I...this is impossible." Johnny started to tear up a bit.

"Don't cry..." Ryliegh muttered and teared up with her boyfriend. "Please, don't..."

"You'll be okay." Johnny promised. "These sons of bitches won't see what's coming to them."

"Kill them for me." Ryleigh smiled.

"I thought you didn't like killing humans?" Johnny smirked.

"They're not humans. They're _monsters_." Ryleigh stuck her tongue out. "Just do me the favor."

Johnny nodded and stood up. He morphed into his suit once again and ran straight at the same student that had kicked Ryleigh. He held him from the head and smashed it straight into the wall. The sound he made as he hit the wall was wince-worthy, but it was relieving. It was safe to say with a head split open, he was very much dead.

"That was brutal." Raylan commented with wide eyes and did the same to another.

Eventually, the Rangers had taken all but one of them out. Tyler kept the last one in a headlock and put his blaster to his head. This was their last chance to get answers.

"I'm going to ask you once." Tyler told him. "Why did you take her?"

"We want to fuck with you guys." the student chuckled, his red eyes starting to come down to normal.

"And what's up with your eyes?" Raylan asked.

"None of your business!"

"Tell us!" Johnny roared and punched his gut as hard as he could.

"F-Father wants his strength." the student gasped, trying to regain some air after the hit.

"What do you mean?"

"We are the feast that makes him as powerful as he is." the student smirked. "He will rise to what he wants to be."

"What are you talking about?" Raylan asked with a hint of concern in his tone. "A feast?"

"There is so much that you will _never _come to know."

"No, we're going to find out right here and right now." Raylan said. "Explain your feast."

"No."

Raylan send his knee straight at the student's gut. He gasped for air before making painful eye contact with him.

"The level of testosterone a man is powered by when he does the dirty is unreal." the student stated. "And when it comes through force...the power is unnatural. Father feeds on the energy we receive."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Johnny asked. "A feast? The feeding?"

"Does he eat you or something?" Raylan asked.

"Yes."


	17. We're In This Alone

**=Stanford, California, United States==**

All of the Rangers stood around the lone surviving criminal. The one word he had spoken had spoken for miles. That 'yes' opened up a whole new door for possibilities. Raylan felt sick to his stomach when he heard it being uttered.

"What...what do you mean?" he asked. "He just...he just eats you?"

"He would have until _you _all butted in." the student spat while still in Tyler's grasp. "Can't you just let us do our fucking job?"

"Your job involves raping and hurting other people." Raylan said. "As Power Rangers, we can't let that happen."

"Who gives a shit what you guys want?" the student asked.

"The rest of the world does. What compelled you to be a part of this organization in which you would ultimately die?"

"The Great Promise." the student answered.

"The Great Promise?" Raylan asked. "Explain."

"You see, when we complete what we have to complete, Father takes our power from us. Once we are drained of all we call 'life', we can move on to a more powerful life in Valhalla."

"Valhalla?" Emma asked. "Isn't that the Norse heaven?"

"Father used whatever power he had to create a world for us in another dimension." the student answered. "After doing what is asked of us, we are sent to Valhalla where we rule everything limitlessly. We will come back with more power than we every imagined!"

"What do you mean by come back?" Emma asked wearily.

"When Father's power reaches its maximum capability, Valhalla will fuse with the natural world through the Ragnarok. At that time, all who followed him become masters of the universe."

"You...you become demigods." Raylan said.

"Is that why your eyes turn red or something?" Johnny asked. "Cause we still haven't gotten to that part, yet."

"We gain the immense power as we eat a flower of Folkvangr." the student answered. "It gives us semi-demigod powers for a short burst of time."

"Folkvangr is the counterpart to Valhalla..." Emma mumbled. "Something's not right here..."

"So you're not a human, you're a divine!" Raylan exclaimed.

"I _was _ a divine until you held my damn powers to a halt!" the student grunted. "If you guys didn't butt your stupid heads in then our plan would have gone smoothly."

"Um, nobody kidnaps my girlfriend." Johnny said. "_Nobody_."

"Does it look like I give the smallest shit about what you want me to do with your girlfriend?" the student asked. "I just want to do what's asked of me so I can get all the power in the world."

"You're just a selfish brat." Raylan shook his head. "You get your pleasure out of other people's pain and intend to capitalize on it."

"This world is a nasty place, Ranger." the student told him. "Everybody climbs up the ladder of life by stepping on other people. You just need to know how to play the game."

"We've been playing the game for two years." Tyler informed by. "The game of finishing asshats like you."

"Asshat is kind of a compliment for me." the student smirked.

"You really are a worthless piece of shit." Johnny shook his head.

"And rightfully so. Now if you'd excuse me, I have a task to finish off!" the student shouted and broke from Tyler's grip.

He lunged at Ryleigh and knocked the girl down after she barely managed to stand up the first time. Before trying his sneaky tactics, Johnny was able to rip him off of his girlfriend. When him and his enemy could see helmet-to-eye, Johnny sent his fist flying straight at the kid. He fell back with Johnny standing over him. Johnny pulled out his blaster and continuously fired at him.

"Why did you do that!?" Sydney asked in shock. "We were getting so much information from him!"

"We already found out everything we needed to know for now." Raylan put his hand on her shoulder. "The rest is up to us."

"What do you mean?"

"We know that this isn't some crime ring we're talking about, this is a cult. I can't tell if Father is just spewing lies to feed his cannibalism or if he actually created a pseudo-heaven, but we know enough to be able to go after him."

"How do we find him?" Mike asked. "We literally know nothing about him or where he is."

"We're going to have to play a similar strategy to the way we beat J." Raylan told them.

"So we just wait and do nothing again?" Tyler asked. "That doesn't sound like much of a plan to me."

"Hey, it worked last time." Raylan shrugged.

"But we ended up putting so many innocent people at risk."

"It's not like we had much of a choice." Raylan said.

"You're the leader, so I'll let it be your call." Tyler sighed.

"I'm going to side with Raylan on this one." Mike agreed with Raylan. "Like he said, it worked well for us last time. Not to mention the fact that he hasn't really gotten any call wrong."

"Then we wait." Raylan nodded.

* * *

The Rangers headed back to the hotel where the others were staying for the weekend. After a hectic morning rescuing Ryleigh from Father's men, they thought it was best to rest up. Since they were pretty much done with alcohol, they just decided to chill out in the room.

"So we're literally going to do nothing about this." Emma pouted. "I kinda wanna get in some action."

"Too bad we can't." Ryleigh said. "There's no way we can find out about anything when we don't even know who this 'Father' guy is."

"The sucky part is that if we wait to long, Valhalla will fuse with Earth." Raylan said.

"Isn't Valhalla supposed to be some sort of heaven, though?" Emma asked. "What's so bad about fusing Earth with the Nordic heaven?"

"The fact that it won't be heaven for us." Tyler answered. "The dude said that it'll be a heaven for only the followers of Father. All others become powerless slaves."

"Have you guys read the novel _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep__?_" Raylan asked. "Or at least watched the movie version, _Blade Runner_?"

"You're asking me? Obviously." Tyler nodded. "But what does that have to do with anything present?"

"Don't you get it?" Raylan asked. "We're playing the part of the androids! We're just going to be slaves for the powerful. And do you know what happened at the end of the book?" he asked. The entire team apart from Tyler shook their heads. "The androids get eliminated."

"We're not just fighting for the sake of our city here, we're fighting for the sake of lives." Tyler said. "But unlike our past fights, we don't have the public's help on this one. We're in this alone."


	18. Freyja

_Sorry for not updating in a while, lacrosse season started and it's conflicting with my main schedule. It's got me practically booked for as long as possible, but I'm still going to throw in updates everywhere when I get the chance._

**==Valhalla, Asgard==**

Father took a breath of the clean, pure air of Valhalla and smiled. It was only a matter of time before the fuse to bring it with the Earth was complete and he wouldn't let anything delay it. He walked around the mythological heaven to assure that everything was still in place for the Ragnarok.

So far, none of his disciples had accomplished their twisted, cultic goal. While he was disappointed, he had to be thankful for the fact that there were till people willing to put up with his old and corrupted ways. The times were changing and magic was starting to appear less and less like a reality, so he was glad that there were still those who believed in it.

He walked over to the great hall that was in the center of the land. He smiled as he marveled its splendor; the palace that he would call home in the future. He was a man of his word, and he would stop at _nothing _to bring his visions into reality.

"Open the gates." he told a guardian standing in front of the hall.

"As you wish, my master." the guardian nodded and waved his hand in the sky. The two of them watched as the gates separated. "You may enter."

"I look to this being complete when the time arrives." Father told him and walked into the hall.

He breathed the fresh, heavenly air of Valhalla within his castle. It was a great feeling that he would be a legendary king very soon. He only had the pesky Power Rangers to dispose of. He had to admit, they were a tough bunch of people to get rid of, but he would do it.

"Sir!" he called out to one of his guardians. "Fetch me a flower of Folkvangr."

"As you ask." the guardian bowed before exiting the castle.

"Make it quick." Father replied.

Father stood around and waited for the guardian to finally reenter the palace. When he saw the guardian run straight through the door, he smiled and looked at the beautiful white flower in his hand. The guardian made his way to Father and handed him the flower.

"Picked straight from Folkvangr." the guardian panted. "Wow, I'm out of breath."

"Take rest, you have done well." Father nodded. He sighed and took a bite out of the flower, immersing himself in its power.

He walked all the way up the staircase until he reached his solid gold throne. He smiled lightly and took a seat on it. It was made entirely of the golden leaves of Glasir, giving it a magical feel that could only be comprehended by him. Soon, his fantasy world would merge with reality. Before he could do that, he had something else to take care of.

* * *

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

Things started to settle down on that Sunday afternoon as the other Rangers prepared to leave back home. They still had a few hours with their teammates, so they wanted to spend it well. After all the craziness ended, they decided to just go out for a celebratory lunch at the local Thai restaurant.

"There's nothing that can possibly happen now." Raylan assured his team. "We've got them running for a while."

"But what that dude said still bothers me." Ryleigh admitted. "There's so much that we never even thought was possible. Who knows what else these guys are up to?"

"We're just going to have to wait and see." Raylan shrugged. "Unless you have a better idea, which I would _love _to hear."

As Raylan said that, their Morphers started to warm up, something it hadn't done in a while. They all looked at each other confusedly before Raylan put his Morpher to his ear.

"What's going on, Gadget-X?" he asked.

"_I'm picking up energy reading everywhere!_" the robot's voice buzzed through the communicator.

"What are you talking about? I sense nothing wrong."

"_It's beyond the real world!_"

"So it really doesn't pose any threat?"

"_As long as you don't let it fester._" Gadget-X said. "_I can break you through the barrier, if you'd like to go see_."

"How will that affect us?" Raylan asked.

"_It won't, it just allows me to mess around with the time-space continuum long enough to get you in there and get you out_."

"So we can inspect this energy reading and return to the normal world without wasting any time?"

"_I mean, it will last a few milliseconds, but you should be fine_."

"Send us in." Raylan said and then looked to his team. They were visibly confused by what just happened, but it wasn't like they had much of a choice.

They closed their eyes and felt the air around them freeze. The continuum was letting them in.

* * *

**==Folkvangr, Asgard==**

The eight Rangers appeared in the meadows of Folkvangr by dropping from the sky. When they hit the soft ground, they inspected their surroundings. It was just a long field of flowers...a long, _long _field of flowers. Raylan took a minute to slowly sniff the air.

"It smells...heavenly." he commented.

"I agree, it smells delicious." Tyler stated. "I kinda wanna eat one."

"Me too." Raylan said and picked a flower. Before he could take a test bite, a powerful wind knocked it out of his hand. "Hey, what gives?"

"_I wouldn't advise that_." a booming female voice echoed through the fields.

"Who...who said that?" Emma asked in a cowering tone.

"_I am Freyja, goddess of love, war, and death_." the voice answered. "_What business do you have here?_"

"We...we come here in peace." Raylan shouted to the sky.

"_How can I trust that?_" the voice asked.

"How can you _not _trust that?" Raylan asked back. "We're the Power Rangers, we live to protect."

There was a moment of silence before a glow appeared in front of the Rangers. Out of the glow came a beautiful and naked lady. All of the Rangers were shocked at the sudden arrival and tried to play it off. Ryleigh slapped her boyfriend when his glance slowly started to move upwards.

"Sorry, instant reaction." he apologized.

"You're...you're naked." Raylan told her.

"You think I don't know that?" Freyja asked.

"Sorry, just wanted to point that out." he shrugged.

"As I was asking, what business do you have here?" Freyja questioned.

"We were just following a disturbance." Raylan explained. "We detected a high level of energy coming from this area."

"Of course, you are in Folkvangr!" Freyja exclaimed.

"Folkvangr? You mean the other Nordic heaven?" Emma asked. "How did we end up here?"

"Can you just explain to us what this disturbance is?" Raylan asked.

"Only if I know I can trust you." Freyja told them.

"Oh, come on!" Mike exclaimed. "We're Power Rangers! What wrong could we do?"

"That means nothing to me." Freyja glared at him. "Pass a test and I will let you know all."

"Fuck this..." Mike kicked some of the flowers.

"Hey, let's just go with it." Raylan mumbled to them. "We'll take your test!" he told her.

"Good, follow me."


	19. Jörmungandr

_Sorry for the long time with no update! Like I said before, spring sports season has started and I have practice pretty much every weekday until night. It'll be weekends when I can finally update my story. :(_

_Anyways, on with the story!_

* * *

**==Folkvangr, Asgard==**

The Rangers followed Freyja through Folkvangr until they reached a crevice in the meadow. They looked down the massive hole to find a giant ball of shadows covering the ground. Confused, they turned back to Freyja.

"What's going on down there?" Raylan asked.

"Prove to me that you're really on my side." Freyja started. "That bumbling idiot Father brought this monster from Valhalla to eat up my land. He wants to use it to transport chunks of Folkvangr to Valhalla to form his own little perfect world."

"So you want us to destroy that thing?"

"That would be my request." Freyja nodded. "Be careful, though. There is an actual monster dwelling somewhere inside that mass of darkness. If you can take it down, the rest should come automatically."

"We'll do it." Raylan gave her a thumbs up. "Ready?" he asked his team.

"It's morphin' time!"

The Rangers morphed into their suits and jumped down the pit into the mass of shadows. Not knowing what to expect, they braced for any sort of impact. They were surprised to float right through it into a dark realm. Not to far in the distance, they could see a hulking black snake coiling around some rocks.

"What's that?" Emma asked before taking cover behind a boulder.

"I have no idea, but Freyja wants us to take it out." Raylan told his girlfriend. "Cowering isn't going to help us. We have to go in for the kill."

"Fine." Emma groaned and followed the others over to the serpent.

"Who are you?" Raylan asked.

"You dare ask _who I am_?" the serpent hissed. "How could you _not _know who I am?"

"Well, we obviously don't." Raylan replied. "Now, do you want us to know who you are or not?"

"I am the divine serpent Jörmungandr, guardian of Midgard, son of Loki, and one of the main Ouroboros." Jörmungandr hissed.

"I know who you are!" Tyler exclaimed. "You're that thing that gets cut up by Thor in the old stories, right?"

"What are you doing all the way in Folkvangr?" Johnny asked. "I don't know what a Midgard is, but it doesn't seem anywhere nearby."

"The hell do _I _know what I'm doing here?" Jörmungandr asked. "I was just sent here by something and I'm getting really hungry. This place's landscape seems delicious."

"Sorry to rain on your parade, but we're here to destroy you." Mike said, pulling out his blaster.

"Oh, that's funny." Jörmungandr chuckled. "I would like to see you try."

Jörmungandr started to slither his way around the Rangers until he had them completely within his span. He lifted his head and looked at all of them. Now that he had them within his boundaries, they were easier to prey on.

"I call this my private battlefield." Jörmungandr said. "This is where you die."

"Your biggest mistake was pulling us closer to you." Raylan said and shot a blast at the serpent's eye.

"Ow!" Jörmungandr staggered back and closed his eye that was in pain. "That one hurt!"

"I got the second one!" Mike shouted and fired his blaster at Jörmungandr's other eye. Unfortunately, his shot was off to the right.

"Nice shot." Jörmungandr complimented Mike's marksmanship. "However, being close doesn't cut it when you're on the front lines."

"How's this?" Tyler asked and shot Jörmungandr's other eye perfectly. "I was always the best shooter on the team."

"Don't get too over your head, buddy." Johnny placed his hand on Tyler's shoulder as they watched the serpent writhe in pain.

"What kind of torture is this?" Jörmungandr asked.

"You seem like you're not too used to losing." Raylan commented.

"I am _not _losing!" Jörmungandr roared into the sky. "How _dare _you even say that I am!?"

"Sorry, just pointing out the obvious." Raylan shrugged.

"Why do you want me dead so bad?" Jörmungandr asked. "I seriously don't know what the problem is here."

"Well, the fact that this is Folkvangr and you're eating it up..." Ryleigh groaned and threw her arms up.

"Wait a minute...did you say that this was Folkvangr?" Jörmungandr's eyes widened.

"I kinda said that way back if you were paying attention..." Johnny groaned. "You have a terrible attention span."

"Listen, I really don't know what I'm doing here. Yeah, sure, I'm supposed to be a demon and such, but Folkvangr isn't really my ideal choice of destruction." Jörmungandr explained. "If you let me go, I'll reward you with a little treat."

"That is _if _you promise to leave here for good." Raylan said.

"Promise." Jörmungandr nodded. "I will gift your team with three lightning arm cannons. I like to call them the Ouroboros Cannons."

"We'll take them in exchange for your life and your departure." Raylan nodded.

"Then here you go." Jörmungandr said and presented Johnny, Mike, and Ryleigh each with an arm cannon. "I will be taking my leave now."

Jörmungandr nodded farewell to the Rangers and teleported off away from the shadows. A little while after he disappeared, the shadows around the Rangers started to fade away and they found themselves in the crevice again.

"So that's what it feels like to trip on acid..." Mike mumbled. "Remind me not to ever do drugs in my life."

A beam of light was shot at the Rangers as they unmorphed and floated up back to the Folkvangr mainland. There, they were greeted by a smiling...but still naked...Freyja.

"You eight have earned my trust." Freyja told them. "Ask me anything you want."

"First question." Raylan started. "What the hell just happened down there?"


	20. Out of Folkvangr

_I thought this would be an appropriate time to say this, but the Ragnarok was technically supposed to happen a few days ago! I had absolutely no idea about it, but I find it kind of cool that I'm writing this story at about the same time._

_I was able to sneak this chapter in today! I wasn't expecting to finish any writing off anytime soon, but practice was canceled and it gave me plenty of time to start typing._

_Anyways, on with the story!_

* * *

**==Folkvangr, Asgard==**

The Rangers stood in front of Freyja unsure of what just happened. While they knew for a fact that they went into some shadow reality of Folkvangr, they weren't sure who Jörmungandr actually was and what it was his business to be doing in Folkvangr. They all waited for Raylan to speak first.

"How...how did any of that just happen?" Raylan asked.

"Father employed a system of transit to bring his monsters into Folkvangr." Freyja explained. "Folkvangr, along with Valhalla, serve as the two heavens of our Norse beliefs. By eliminating Folkvangr, the catalyst to Valhalla, Father would have an unlimited rule over the heavens."

"So he brought that thing here?" Raylan asked. "It didn't seem to know exactly what it was doing."

"I'm not sure how ethical his methods are and whether he brings these monsters here on their own will, but he'll stop at nothing to have this place torn up." Freyja said.

"Why doesn't he just come down here and do it himself?" Emma asked. "Or am I missing something crucial here?"

"One human doesn't have the power to single-handedly destroy a heaven."

"He's human?" Tyler asked. "But...but...that sort of logic doesn't line up!"

"He's a human that knows how to manipulate the powers beyond the physical world." Freyja said. "Much like you eight."

"But like Emma asked, if he can manipulate his surroundings, why doesn't he just come here himself?" Ryleigh asked.

"He can't do it, so he uses his powers to bring monsters here to do so." Freyja told them.

"How many of these are here?" Raylan asked. "I don't like not knowing what I'm really going up against."

"As far as I know, there are three more of his monsters somewhere hidden in this plane." Freyja answered. "However, I don't know where they are or how to get to them."

"I thought you ruled this place. Shouldn't you know where they're hidden?"

"If I knew where they were, then they wouldn't exactly be hidden." Freyja chuckled. "I'm not as stupid as you think I am."

"What are we going up against here?"

"I'm not exactly sure of any of this. Yes, I rule this plane, but there are still mysteries that I have yet to solve." Freyja informed them. "I really wish I knew more about Father, but there's not much more information I can provide."

"Thank you for everything, Freyja." Raylan nodded and let his team do the same. "Where do we go from here?"

"As of now, I guess you all just go home." Freyja shrugged. "There's really nothing I need you here for. I'll let you know if anything comes up. But still, be on the lookout for more crime in your area. Just because you were able to shoo away one of Father's beasts does not mean he has given up."

"We will, Freyja." Raylan bowed.

"Now, begone!" she held her finger in the air and waved it around to gather some magical energy. She shot the burst at the Rangers and sent them back to their world. She sighed and walked back into the meadows, in search of any other monster that was dwelling behind her back.

* * *

**==Stanford, California, United States==**

The Rangers found themselves in an empty street as they started to process their surroundings. They were back in their own world after an eventful 'fight' against Jörmungandr. Still not too entirely sure about anything, the group just stuck together. Ryleigh clung onto Johnny's arm.

"I'm scared." she complained and nestled into his shoulder.

"It's okay." Johnny smiled and kissed the side of his girlfriend's head. "Everything will come out just right, I promise."

The group slowly walked back to the hotel that the non-Stanford Rangers rented out. Since it was Sunday, they had to leave back to their homes to start the normal week again. Then, Raylan noticed something strange on his Morpher.

"Guys...are you seeing this?" he asked and waited for everyone else to look at their Morphers.

"The time...hasn't changed!" Tyler exclaimed. "Did we just...?"

"We just fucked with the time-space continuum!" Mike pumped his fist only to be met with confused looks. "Hey, I'm allowed to have smart moments once in a while..."

"So we just went to Folkvangr, scared away a giant serpent, met a goddess, and got arm cannons without wasting any time?" Sydney asked.

"Sweet!" Raylan smiled. "I'll take it!"

"It's still a Sunday afternoon, though." Shane reminded the team. "We've got to get back to our normal lives."

"We'll resume this later." Raylan told his team. "First, we have to get everything packed up for you guys to head back. After all that settles down, just play it safe and listen for any kidnappings."

The eight Rangers nodded and started to walk off together.


	21. Get Shane a Girl

**==Los Angeles, California, United States==**

Shane woke up in a groggy slump late the next Monday. Luckily for him, he was able to schedule it so that he did not have any classes on Mondays, essentially giving him an extra weekend day. He slowly got up and got ready to start the day off.

What had happened the previous weekend was, to say the least, hectic. The Rangers were sent into another world, met a goddess, saved an old Norse heaven, 'defeated' a giant serpent, and learned of their new goal. If anything were to be taken from it, it was the fact that they would once again have to be alert at all times.

For Shane, this meant that he could no longer be as lazy as he was. Like always, an enemy was a threat to be taken seriously and Shane was the last person to be responsible for the world falling apart. In Raylan's absence, he had been able to prove himself the leader of the team and now had to once again show them that he was a force not to be reckoned with.

However, there was one obstacle that kept on getting in Shane's way: he hadn't found a girl to call his own. While sounding a bit ridiculous only being a college freshman, Shane was getting tired of single life. The last time he ever had a girlfriend was way back in his sophomore year of high school when he dated Isabelle Daley. That too didn't last very long as he found out how psychotic she actually was.

Shane, by all means, was a very attractive guy. He just never had luck on his side when it came to girls. It usually began with the fact that he was the type of guy to choose a one-night-stand over a relationship. This led to a huge downfall in his ability to actually keep and maintain a relationship with a girl.

He knew that despite all of his bad luck, the team had two relationship masters: Ryleigh and Sydney. Sydney, unfortunately, wasn't an option since she was still all the way in Smalltown. Ryleigh, on the other hand, went to the same college as Shane and would be glad to help...or so Shane hoped.

He sighed and sent her a text. "_hey I need help with something real quick_" he asked and closed his phone. He knew that she was in class so he had to give her some time to get back to him.

"_what do you need?_" Ryleigh replied rather fast.

"_you know how you guys always joke about me being a failure at relationships?_"

"_of course...go on_"

"_I want a girlfriend._" Shane managed to text in perfect grammar.

"_AHAHAHA but i'm already taken...sorry bucko_" she replied quickly.

"_i'm not talking about you idiot. I just want you to help me get a girl_"

"_even if I helped you out they'd still run away out of fear_" Ryleigh joked.

"_ok really__?_" Shane asked.

"_meet me in my room at the end of the day and i'll take you to a party_" Ryleigh said.

"_on a monday nite?_"

"_do u want a girl or not?_"

"_fine_" Shane texted and put his phone away. He had better get prepared if he wanted to actually impress girls.

* * *

It was around eight o'clock that night when Shane decided to go down to Ryleigh's room. He knew she was probably going to berate him about not dressing properly, but he didn't care. For all he knew, she was the one that was going to be doing the makeover on him.

He reached her door and knocked on it slowly. It didn't take long for her to rush to the door and open it. When she saw the way he was dressed, she couldn't help but laugh loudly.

"You think _that _will work!?" Ryleigh asked and then pulled Shane inside. "You're going to need a lot of work."

"Hey, you're supposed to be helping me, not criticizing." Shane crossed his arms. "Now what do I need to do?"

"You need a _lot _of work." Ryleigh said.

"I don't look that bad." Shane defended himself.

"Sure, you have natural attractiveness, but your dressing habits are..." Ryleigh sniggered at Shane.

"Can you just get me ready, please?" Shane pleaded. "Sure, I'm a mess, but that's why I'm here!"

"Then let's get straight to work." Ryleigh said and went through her drawers. "Lucky for you, I have some of Johnny's clothes here. Don't worry, they're washed."

"Why do you...?" Shane began. "Actually, I don't wanna know."

"You don't want to." she said and tossed him one of Johnny's green collared shirts. "I know you've always been a fan of red, but you have to make a sacrifice for green tonight."

"Fine..." Shane grumbled and quickly changed his shirt. "Now what?"

"Your jeans look...okay. Besides, I really don't want to see you take your pants off so I guess you could keep them on." Ryleigh said. "Your shoes, on the other hand. Who wears running shoes with jeans when you're going out for the night?"

"Umm..." Shane stammered.

"I have a pair of Johnny's Sperrys here so you can try and see if they fit." Ryleigh tossed him a pair of the boat shoes.

"They fit just fine." Shane said and switched his shoes. "So I'm ready, now what?"

"You think you're ready?" Ryleigh asked and chuckled to herself. "Not to be a bitch of anything, but you smell like ass."

"What now?" Shane groaned and sat on her bed.

"I think I have some perfume somewhere in here..." Ryleigh said and started to dig through her drawer again. "Where did it go?"

"You want me to put on _perfume_? I'll smell like a girl!"

"Do you want to smell nice or not?"

"I...I do..."

"Then put my 'Viva La Juicy' on." she said and tossed him a pink bottle.

"This is so feminine!" Shane complained.

"_Put. It. On._" Ryleigh ordered.

"Fine..." Shane groaned and sprayed the perfume all over. "Am I ready now?"

"Yeah, you seem to be fine." Ryleigh nodded.

"Why aren't you dressed up?" Shane asked. "I thought you were going to the party, too!"

"Oh, I'm just getting you in." Ryleigh informed him. "You're doing the rest yourself."

"Oh shit..."


	22. Julie Ward

**==Los Angeles, California, United States==**

Shane and Ryleigh made their way to the fraternity party that Ryleigh was talking about. Even though Ryleigh wasn't going to stay with him, she wanted to make sure that Shane didn't get too bored. He was a pretty social guy so she wasn't worried that he would run out of things to do.

"You know the drill, right?" Ryleigh asked him as they approached the house.

"Yes." Shane nodded. "Are you sure they'll let me in? You know how these frats are about random guys showing up."

"I talked to one of the brothers in my 'Intro to Education' class and he said he'd be more than happy to show you around as long as you're not a bore." Ryleigh assured him.

"I'm going to take your word for it." Shane sighed. "So I just go in or what?"

"Get right to it." Ryleigh pushed him towards the door before walking away slowly.

Shane shrugged and walked right up to the door of the house. While he was excited about the opportunity to party a bit, he was also nervous. He didn't know the kinds of people he would meet and how it would affect him in the future. Suddenly, the door creaked open.

"Who are you?" the student standing behind the door asked.

"Shane. Shane Johnson." Shane answered.

"Oh, you're the guy that Ryleigh was telling me about." the student said and opened the door just enough for Shane to talk in. "The name's Drexel Woods and I'm the president of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity here at UCLA."

"Nice to meet you." Shane nodded and shook Drexel's hand.

"Now what was the whole deal with you again?" Drexel asked.

"This is gonna sound embarrassing, but I'm not too good with the ladies." Shane admitted. "Ryleigh told he she'd get me into a party for the sole purpose of getting me to talk to some."

"Ah, I see the issue here." Drexel said. "You need some confidence building."

"I mean, if that's what you're insisting."

"How about we run through a few situations. Come on inside." Drexel invited Shane into the main room of the house.

Shane walked into the party room and saw kids dancing and throwing a rave everywhere. Girls were scrunched up on guys and loud music was blaring from the speakers. Drinks were being passed around and people were having conversations to the side. Shane had to agree that this was the ideal type of place to meet good looking girls.

"What do you think of the people here?" Drexel asked.

"They all seem like they're having a good time." Shane nodded.

"Now tell me which girl you find the most attractive." Drexel said.

"R-really?" Shane asked.

"Yeah, I'll call her over here." Drexel nodded.

"That brunette with curly hair over there hanging out with her friends is pretty cute." Shane pointed over to a corner where three girls were having fun.

"That's Julie Ward. Good choice." Drexel smiled and walked over to her. After about a minute of conversation, he brought her over to Shane. "Shane, I'd like you to meet Julie. Julie, this is my good friend Shane. Now I'll let you two get acquainted."

Shane felt the rush as he heard those words. Not only did he have a chance with an extremely attractive girl, she also seemed a bit eager to walk over to him. This could either go right or extremely right.

"What's up?" Shane asked her.

"Nothin' much." Julie smiled and handed Shane a cup. "This is my drink, but I'm not really in the mood to finish it."

"Oh, thank you." Shane nodded and took Julie's drink. "So what're you doing here?"

"My friends thought it would be cool to come hang out here tonight."

"On a Monday night?" Shane asked.

"Eh, I wasn't planning on getting really fucked up or something like that." Julie chuckled. "Besides, Drexel and I go pretty far back so he'd keep me level if I started to get belligerent."

"How did you first meet Drexel?"

"We went to high school together." Julie answered. "I never talked to him much until the later years but we became pretty good friends through that. Not to mention the fact that we hung around each other a bit since coming to college."

"Oh, that's pretty cool." Shane nodded.

"What about you? How did you first meet him?"

"Oh, I only met him first tonight. He's in a class with one of my friend's, Ryleigh, and she got us to know each other." Shane answered. He wasn't about to tell Julie that he knew Drexel for the sole reason of meeting her.

"Oh, that's cool. So you're new to this whole frat system, then?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm not really familiar with the way this all works." Shane chuckled.

"Ah, I see." Julie nodded. "Well, do you want to move this conversation outside or something? It's kinda hard to hear with all the loud music booming around."

"Yeah, I'm fine with that." Shane said and the pair headed out the door. Once outside, Julie took a huge sigh of relief.

"It was way too loud in there. I don't do too well with loud noises." she told him.

"Really? How come?" Shane asked.

"I have really sensitive hearing and continuous loud noises just start to hurt after a while. I mean, I can deal with it for a short amount of time but hours and hours of it starts to kill me." Julie groaned. "I'm glad to be out here, though."

Shane realized that Julie really wanted to talk to him. Not to mention the fact that she was extremely attractive. This was his one chance to say something that could further their relationship into waters that he wanted to test. He had to ask her something right away to make sure that he had her locked up for the night.

"So, do you want to take this back to my room or something?" Shane asked.

"Uhmm..." Julie stammered.

"I mean, it's not too loud in there or anything..."

"Sure, I don't mind." Julie shrugged. "Lead the way!"

Shane couldn't believe his ears. Not only did Julie just accept his offer, she accepted his offer to go back to _his room_. There was only one way that this could go, and Shane was absolutely certain he had said the right words.

"Well, follow me then!"


End file.
